received, with great disfavor, Madame's announcement that Winnie was henceforth to room in the Amen Corner.

The bedrooms at Madame's boarding-school were clustered in little groups around study-parlors, five girls forming a family. For a long time there had been only four in our set. Emma Jane Anton, who preferred to room alone, had the little single bedroom; Adelaide and Milly were chums; while I, Nellie Smith, familiarly nicknamed Tib, had luxuriated so long in the large corner chamber that I had almost forgotten that Madame told me, at the outset, that I must hold myself in readiness to receive a room-mate at any time.

Adelaide Armstrong was the daughter of a railroad magnate. She had been brought up in the West, but, though she had traveled much, and had seen a great deal of society, her education had not been entirely neglected. She had studied a great deal in a desultory way, and contested the head of the class with Emma Jane Anton, who was a "regular dig," and had prepared for college in the Boston public schools.

It was really surprising how Adelaide had picked up so much. She had studied Latin with a priest in New Mexico, and had profited by two years at a lonely post on the confines of Canada, where her father had been interested in the fur trade, to become proficient in French. Strikingly handsome, a brunette with brilliant complexion and Andalusian eyes, energetic and spirited, she was popular both with her instructors and her classmates.

Milly Roseveldt was her exact contrast—a milky-complexioned little blonde, shy and sweet; she was also a trifle dull. Adelaide translated her Latin, and worked out her problems, and I wrote her compositions, while Milly rewarded us with largesses of love and confectionery, for she was the most generous as well as the most affectionate of girls. Her father, a wealthy New York banker, placed large sums of money at her disposal, and Milly deluged her friends with gifts of flowers and bonbons. It seemed very natural to me that Adelaide and Milly should be sworn friends; but my admittance into the sacred circle was a mystery to me, and to a number of aspiring girls who asserted that I was nobody in particular, and who envied me my place in my friends' affection. My presence in the school itself was almost as great a wonder. My father was a Long Island farmer. We opened our house to city boarders during the summer, and one season Miss Sartoris, the teacher in Art at Madame's, boarded with us. I had taken drawing lessons at the Academy, and Miss Sartoris took me out sketching with her. I worked like a beaver, and was never so happy in my life. I delighted Miss Sartoris, who wakened mother's ambition by telling her that I was the most talented pupil she had ever had. More than this: we three induced good, easy-going, generous father to let me go back to the city with Miss Sartoris as a pupil at Madame's. My wardrobe was meagre, but not countrified, for I possessed a natural sense of color and a quick faculty for imitation. I had seen plenty of city people at Scup Haven, and my few dresses, I fancied, would pass muster anywhere. I was a fair scholar, and took the lead in the studio. I was not brilliant and stylish like Adelaide, or rich and pretty like Milly, but they liked me, and I liked myself the better for the consciousness that there must be something nice about me which attracted them. I believe now that it was an absence of self-consciousness and selfishness on my part, and my hearty admiration and devotion to them. Adelaide called me, playfully, "the great American Appreciator."

It was just before the theatricals given by our literary society that an incident occurred which showed me how much they really thought of me. We three were arranging the stage; I was touching up the scenery, and Milly holding the tacks for Adelaide, who was looping the drapery, when we overheard the conversation of a group of girls on the other side of the curtain.

Cynthia Vaughn was the first to speak.

"I think Adelaide Armstrong is perfectly splendid!"

"So do I," said another; and there was a chorus of confused voices exclaiming, "So stylish!" "Perfectly elegant!" "The handsomest girl in school!"

Adelaide left her work and placed her hand on the curtain, but Milly threw her arms impulsively around her. "Let us hear what they will say," she whispered; "when they are through we can pull the cord, and all bow thanks."

By this time other voices were chanting Milly's praises, and Adelaide turned reluctantly away, remarking, "Well, if you enjoy that sort of thing, you are welcome to it. I should not be surprised, by the way they are loading it on, if they knew we were here."

They did not know it, for at that instant Cynthia Vaughn spoke up again, "I don't see what they find to admire in that pokey Lib Smith."

"I should think Milly would be ashamed to be seen with her," said another; "her dresses always remind me of a chicken with its head through a hole in a salt-bag."

Adelaide sprang forward with flashing eyes to confront the speaker, but this time it was I who held her back. "Let them say their say," I whispered, hoarsely, while Milly cowered, trembling. "I believe her mother makes her dresses at home," said Witch Winnie; "and, as she can't have Tib to try them on, she fits them on her grandfather."

There was a hearty laugh at this sally, and another added: "I don't see how Adelaide can endure her, she is so stingy. Have you noticed that the girls place a fresh bouquet at her plate every morning? and I never could find out that she ever gave either of them so much as a single flower."

Adelaide nearly writhed herself from my grasp, but I held her tightly. "Milly," she gasped, "are you a coward, to stand there and hear our friend reviled so? Can't you stop them?"

The blood surged into Milly's pale cheeks, and she sprang before the curtain. "Girls," she cried, "how can you talk so? Nellie Smith is our dearest friend. She is not one bit stingy; she gives us more than we have ever given her. Because she does not parade her presents on the breakfast-table is no reason that she has not given me lots and lots of things, and no girl can consider herself my friend who talks so about our darling Tib."

Here Milly broke down in tears, and Witch Winnie exclaimed, "Good for you, Milly Roseveldt; I didn't know you had so much spunk!" But at this point we all fled to the Amen Corner, and bolted the door, refusing to admit Witch Winnie, who impulsively shouted her apologies through the keyhole.

"Oh, Milly!" I cried, "what made you tell a lie for me? I never gave you a thing." And I might have added, "How could I, when my allowance for spending-money is hardly sufficient to keep me in slate-pencils?"

But Milly stopped my mouth with kisses, and pointed to sundry original works of art with which I had decorated her apartment, and declared, besides, that helping her on that last horrid composition was a greater gift than all the roses in Le Moult's greenhouse.

So we of the Amen Corner disliked Witch Winnie and loved each other, all but Emma Jane Anton. We could not be said to exactly love her; we tolerated her in our midst, in spite of her uncongenial nature, because we took pride in her eminent respectability, and in the higher average of reputation for creditable scholarship and exemplary behavior which she gave to our corner. But love her! We might as well have tried to love an iceberg.

Witch Winnie arrived on Adelaide's birthday, and was a most unwelcome birthday present. Emma Jane Anton had obtained permission for us to celebrate the occasion by sitting up an hour