--" but here sobs
choked the little plaintive voice, and rendered the latter part of the
sentence quite unintelligible.

Her brother's lips curled.

"Win," he said impressively, "you're a good little creature, and the
mother is fond of you. In a few days she will forget all this
annoyance, and things will go on with you as smoothly as before; but I
am different. I shall never be able to blot out of my heart the words
the governor" (Dick's usual name for his father) "said to me this
morning,--never so long as I live. It was not only about this
affair--that I could have stood--but he raked up all my sins and
shortcomings from the days when I was a little boy, and heaped them,
one after the other, on the top of my devoted head. I was bad, stupid,
and awkward--the disgrace of the school, and the butt of my companions.
He was perfectly ashamed of me, and so on." Dick's eyes were flaming.
"But I tell you, Win, what it is: the crisis has come, and I'll do
something desperate."

His sister's tears overflowed again. "I hate crying, I do indeed," she
said, scrubbing her cheeks viciously at every fresh outburst; "but the
nasty little trickly drops will come. Dick, dear old boy, I'm sorry
for you; will you not be sorry for me too? Just listen: I am never to
have Nellie for my friend again. She must never come here, and I must
never go and see Aunt Judith any more."

Dick looked up in amazement. "Why not, Win? What has all that to do
with your conduct towards Ada?"

"I don't know," with another quiver of the lips. "Mamma spoke about
Nellie first, asking where she lived, and if her aunts worked in any
way. Of course I told her simply what I knew, and then she said all
our friendship must end now; she would never have allowed Nellie to be
invited to our party had she known so much about her before."

"But dear me, Win," interrupted the boy impatiently, "the mother
consented when you asked to spend that afternoon at Dingle Cottage some
time ago. Why should she turn round and condemn the friendship now?"

"Oh, I can explain that easily. Mamma was hurrying to go out with
Clare and Edith when I begged permission, and said yes without making
any inquiries; but she scarcely spoke to Nellie on Friday evening, and
I cannot understand what has made her so angry all at once."

"Did she say anything against Nellie personally?"

"No; but she is not in my position in life, and I must not make a
friend and confidante of he