“Ashamed to own her sister, I suppose you would say,” interrupted Mrs. Mason.  “Ashamed to acknowledge that the same blood flowed in her veins, that the same roof once sheltered them, and that the same mother bent lovingly over their pillows, calling them her children.”

“Why, not exactly that,” said Mrs. Campbell, fidgeting in her chair and growing very red.  “I think there is a difference between feeling mortified and ashamed.  Now you must know that Ella would not be particularly pleased to have a homely, stupid, rawboned country girl pointed out as her sister to a circle of fashionable acquaintances in Boston, where I intend taking her as soon as her education is finished; and I think it well enough for Mary to understand, that with the best you can do for her there will still be a great difference between her own and her sister’s position.”

“Excuse me, madam,” again interrupted Mrs. Mason, “a stupid, awkward country girl Mary is not, and never will be.  In point of intellect she is far superior to her sister, and possesses more graceful and lady-like manners.  Instead of Ella’s being ashamed of her, I fancy it will be just the reverse, unless your daughter’s foolish vanity and utter selfishness is soon checked.  Pardon me for being thus plain, but in the short time Mary has been with me, I have learned to love her, and my heart already warms towards her as towards a daughter, and I cannot calmly hear her spoken of so contemptuously.”

During this conversation, Ella had remained listening at the keyhole, and as the voices grew louder and more earnest, Mary, too, distinguished what they said.  She was too young to appreciate it fully, but she understood enough to wound her deeply; and as she just then heard Ella say there was a carriage coming, she sprang up the stairs, and entering her own room, threw herself upon the bed and burst into tears.  Erelong a little chubby face looked in at the door, and a voice which went to Mary’s heart, exclaimed, “Why-ee,—­Mary,—­crying the first time I come to see you!”

It was Jenny, and in a moment the girls were in each other’s arms.

“Rose has gone to the garden with Ella,” said Jenny, “but she told me where to find you, and I came right up here.  Oh, what a nice little room, so different from mine with my things scattered every where.  But what is the matter?  Don’t you like to live with Mrs. Mason?”

“Yes, very much,” answered Mary.  “It isn’t that,” and then she told what she had overheard.

“It’s perfectly ridiculous and out of character for Mrs. Campbell to talk so,” said Jenny, looking very wise.  “And it’s all, false, too.  You are not stupid, nor awkward, nor very homely either; Billy Bender says so, and he knows.  I saw him this morning, and he talked ever so much about you.  Next fall he’s going to Wilbraham to study Latin and Chinese too, I believe, I don’t know though.  Henry laughs and says, ’a plough-jogger study Latin!’ But I guess Billy will some day be a bigger man than Henry don’t you?”