beautiful," cried Charlotte, wondering what Miss Alex
would think of Carlotta Creston.

"No," the young lady said, as if replying to her thought, "I prefer
plain names. For instance, if you should turn out to be a brilliant
beauty and all that, there is nothing inappropriate in your name,
Charlotte Creston. You can glorify it; but if you are only an ordinary
person, you are made absurd by a name you cannot live up to."

This was a new view to take of it. Charlotte wavered, and really
Lucile's influence was a little on the wane when the encounter with
Aunt Caroline gave it new life. At school next day Charlotte came
again under her spell.

Lucile was undeniably pretty and almost as grown up in appearance as
Miss Alex, though only fifteen. She was intensely romantic, her own
personal experiences at this early age would have supplied several
novels, and her manner toward Charlotte was caressing and flattering.
Charlotte was one of the few who understood her, she said. They were
kindred souls.

Lucile wrote verses which seemed to Charlotte quite as good as Cousin
Frank's, and she could sing any number of love-songs charmingly. The
girls would gather about the piano at recess and beg her to sing. The
favorite was one beginning:--

"Teach, oh, teach me not to love thee!
Turn those beauteous eyes away,"

and Lucile always bent a soulful gaze upon Charlotte when she sang it.
Charlotte wondered if her eyes were beauteous.

"When are you coming to see me Carlotta?" Lucile asked one day.

They were walking home from school, and had paused on the corner where
their ways divided.

"I don't know. They don't like me to go out alone," was the answer,
given with a flushed face.

"But the cars bring you almost to our door. I shall be terribly hurt."

Charlotte looked gloomy. "I can't come if they won't let me. You don't
know. They think I am six years old."

"You don't love me. I see it plainly." With a tragic gesture Lucile
drew a ring from her finger and held it out. "Take it back," she said.

In the first ardor of their friendship they had exchanged rings,
Charlotte feeling a little mortified at the time that Lucile's was so
much handsomer than hers, and she had kept it carefully turned in to
avoid comment. But after all it was not giving up the ring she minded.
Lucile's apparent distress touched her affectionate heart.

"Don't say that!" she entreated, drawing back. "I do love you, and I
will come