rom Cousin Francis.

"Father tells me you have been having your own troubles, little Char,"
he wrote. "Well, keep up a good heart and work hard. This is what I am
doing just now. Things have not gone my way at all, but in spite of it
I am going to try to do something worth while this winter. I often
wish you were here to be my admiring critic."

A letter came from Mrs. Wellington also, relating chiefly to a package
Aunt Cora had commissioned her to send, but at the end she said:
"Perhaps you will be interested to know the Carpenter house is closed.
Miss May has gone away--not to be home for a year, they say--so if you
were here, you could not watch for her as you used to do."

Was it on account of Miss Carpenter that things were not going Cousin
Frank's way? Charlotte wondered, and began to think once more of the
rose that was out of reach.

CHAPTER SEVENTEENTH

AN EVENING CALL

"Alex, I am glad to see you. I was about to send Martha over for you;
I am alone this evening. How very nice you look!"

It was an understood thing that if Alex had no other engagement, she
was to take supper at the Wilburs' on Fridays. She stood before Miss
Virginia pulling off her long gloves, looking indeed unusually
handsome in a gown of pale gray and a plumy black hat, which she had
made herself with a sort of reluctant pleasure in its becomingness.

"I simply had to go to the Burtons'," she explained. "Madelaine was
receiving, and mother insisted if I never went anywhere, people would
begin to say she pushed me into the background and showed partiality.
There is no arguing with her when she is in that state of mind, so I
went."

"And enjoyed it, I am sure," said Miss Virginia. "I suppose I
should have gone if Caroline had been at home, but to tell the
truth, I forgot it. Charlotte was asked to a party,--one of her
schoolmates,--and I was interested in seeing her dressed. I am
glad the child is to have a little diversion; she has been as good
as gold lately."

"I am certain you will not have any more trouble with her; Charlotte
is a nice child," Alex replied with a half sigh. She felt that
Charlotte had never quite forgiven her for her severity, and that
Madelaine without any effort or care had won the place she had meant
to hold in the little girl's regard.

Madelaine occasionally joined the Friday tea-party; to fascinate was
as natural to her as to breathe, and Charlotte had been quickly won.

"You look sweet with