st like mine. You know you never carried out
the principle, Anna, dear."

"A principle ceases to be one when it is carried out," said Anna.

"Then you don't think you are going to die because you are folding
that ribbon, honey?"

Anna took up some yellow ribbon. "There is much more need to worry
about Charlotte," said she, in the slightly bitter, sarcastic tone
which had grown upon her lately.

Mrs. Carroll looked at Charlotte, who had removed her hat and was
pinning up her hair at a little glass in a Florentine frame which
hung between the windows. The girl's face, reflected in the glass,
flushed softly, and was seen like a blushing picture in the fanciful
frame, although she did not turn her head, and made no rejoinder to
her aunt's remark.

"What has Charlotte been doing?" asked Mrs. Carroll.

"She has been doing the last thing which any Carroll in his or her
senses is ever supposed to do," replied Anna, in the same tone, as
she folded her yellow ribbon.

"What do you mean, Anna, dear?"

"She has been paying a bill before the credit was exhausted. That is
sheer insanity in a Carroll. If there is anything in the old Scotch
superstition, she is fey, if ever anybody was."

"What bill?" asked Mrs. Carroll.

"Mr. Anderson's," replied Charlotte, faintly, still without turning
from the glass which reflected her charming pink face in its gilt,
scrolled frame.

"Mr. Anderson's?"

"The grocer's bill," said Charlotte.

"Oh! I did not know what his name was," said Mrs. Carroll.

"He probably is well acquainted with ours, on his books," said Anna.

Mrs. Carroll looked in a puzzled way from her to Charlotte, who had
turned with a little air of defiance. "Had he refused to let us have
any more groceries?" said she.

"No," said Charlotte.

"I told you he had not," said Anna, shaking out a lace handkerchief,
which diffused an odor of violet through the room.

"Then why did you pay him, honey?" asked Mrs. Carroll, wonderingly,
of Charlotte.

"I paid him just because he had trusted us," said she, in a voice
which rang out clearly with the brave honesty of youth.

Suddenly she looked from her mother to her aunt with accusing eyes.
"I don't believe it is right to go on forever buying things and never
paying for them, just because a gentleman is kind enough to let you,"
said she.

"I thought you said it was the grocer, Charlotte, honey," said Mrs.
Carroll, helplessly.

"He is a gentleman, if he is a grocer,"