s banged and banged.

"Shame--this is the worst yet!" Mrs. Porter said. "You aren't going
home to lunch in all this, Margaret?"

"Oh, I don't know," Margaret said despondently. "I'm so dead that I'd
make a cup of tea here if I didn't think Mother would worry and send
Julie over with lunch."

"I brought some bread and butter--but not much. I hoped it would hold
up. I hate to leave Tom and Sister alone all day," Mrs. Porter said
dubiously. "There's tea and some of those bouillon cubes and some
crackers left. But you're so tired, I don't know but what you ought
to have a hearty lunch."

"Oh, I'm not hungry." Margaret dropped into a desk, put her elbows on
it, pushed her hair off her forehead. The other woman saw a tear slip
by the lowered, long lashes.

"You're exhausted, aren't you, Margaret?" she said suddenly.

The little tenderness was too much. Margaret's lip shook.

"Dead!" she said unsteadily. Presently she added, with an effort at
cheerfulness, "I'm just cross, I guess, Emily; don't mind me! I'm
tired out with examinations and--" her eyes filled again--"and I'm
sick of wet cold weather and rain and snow," she added childishly.
"Our house is full of muddy rubbers and wet clothes! Other people go
places and do pleasant things," said Margaret, her breast rising and
falling stormily; "but nothing ever happens to us except broken arms,
and bills, and boilers bursting, and chicken-pox! It's drudge, drudge,
drudge, from morning until night!"

With a sudden little gesture of abandonment she found a handkerchief
in her belt, and pressed it, still folded, against her eyes. Mrs.
Porter watched her solicitously, but silently. Outside the schoolroom
windows the wind battered furiously, and rain slapped steadily against
the panes.

"Well!" the girl said resolutely and suddenly. And after a moment
she added frankly, "I think the real trouble to-day, Emily, is that
we just heard of Betty Forsythe's engagement--she was my brother's
girl, you know; he's admired her ever since she got into High School,
and of course Bruce is going to feel awfully bad."

"Betty engaged? Who to?" Mrs. Porter was interested.

"To that man--boy, rather, he's only twenty-one--who's been visiting
the Redmans," Margaret said. "She's only known him two weeks."

"Gracious! And she's only eighteen--"

"Not quite eighteen. She and my sister, Julie, were in my first class
four years ago; they're the same age," Margaret said. "She came
fluttering