elieve they want to," Charlotte answered; "and I think the
Terrace is very nice," she added, feeling Lucile was rather too
complacent.

"Why, they are beginning to put up stores there!" Lucile exclaimed.

Charlotte had herself freely criticised the Terrace, but this did not
keep her from resenting Lucile's remarks, and she carried away with
her a consciousness of the friction. As she walked home, she felt a
vague dissatisfaction with life in general, and heartily wished she
had not gone. She could not help seeing, just a little, why Aunt
Caroline did not care for the Lyles.

Charlotte had a strong impulse to confess, and say she was sorry for
what she had done; but the right moment did not come. Aunt Caroline
was out that evening and Aunt Virginia in one of her shy, elusive
moods. She got as far as "Aunt Virginia, I want to tell you,--I did
something dreadful to-day--" when a visitor was announced. Her aunt
looked relieved.

"Never mind, my dear; if you are sorry, I have no doubt it will be all
right," she said, rising hastily. "Go to bed early."

How could you tell people things if they did not want to listen? At
any rate she would not go to the Lyles' again, and she gave herself to
her studies with a new earnestness born of repentance.

CHAPTER NINTH

IN THE SHOP

The opposition of the neighborhood resulted in advertising the shop to
some extent. Whoever saw the odd little place was certain to tell some
one else; and this person and that, dropping in out of curiosity to
look, remained to buy, if only a trifle.

The wares were novel and attractive, the prices reasonable, and the
shopkeepers themselves afforded food for speculation. Like their
wares, they were unusual,--considered as shopkeepers, that is. To all
appearances ladies, their manner of speech betrayed they were not
Southern; yet they did not single out the letter _r_ as worthy of
peculiar emphasis,--a thing the Terrace could not tolerate.

To those who often passed the shop, James Mandeville became a familiar
figure; for from the first he elected to bestow upon its proprietors
his unqualified friendship, and a day rarely went by without a visit
from him. He quickly learned to adapt himself to the rule that he must
not finger things, nor interrupt when customers were present. He
usually brought some plaything with him,--most frequently the flannel
donkey,--and amused himself quite happily, with an occasional appeal
to the sympathy of his