sistants.

"I would have Amelia recite a little verse or two,"
said Madame, "but how can I?" Madame adored
dress, and had a lovely new one of sheer dull-blue
stuff, with touches of silver, for the last day.

"Yes," agreed Miss Parmalee, "that poor child is
sensitive, and for her to stand on the platform in
one of those plain ginghams would be too cruel."

"Then, too," said Miss Acton, "she would re-
cite her verses exactly like Lily Jennings. She can
make her voice exactly like Lily's now. Then every-
body would laugh, and Amelia would not know why.
She would think they were laughing at her dress, and
that would be dreadful."

If Amelia's mother could have heard that conver-
sation everything would have been different, al-
though it is puzzling to decide in what way.

It was the last of the summer vacation in
early September, just before school began, that a
climax came to Amelia's idolatry and imitation of
Lily. The Jenningses had not gone away that sum-
mer, so the two little girls had been thrown together
a good deal. Mrs. Diantha never went away during
a summer. She considered it her duty to remain at
home, and she was quite pitiless to herself when it