child has in all my life," she told the other grand-
mother, Mrs. Stark. "Have the Starks always had
such very straight hair?"

Mrs. Stark stiffened her chin. Her own hair was
very straight. "I don't know," said she, "that the
Starks have had any straighter hair than other
people. If Amelia does not have anything worse to
contend with than straight hair I rather think she
will get along in the world as well as most people."

"It's thin, too," said Grandmother Wheeler, with
a sigh, "and it hasn't a mite of color. Oh, well,
Amelia is a good child, and beauty isn't everything."
Grandmother Wheeler said that as if beauty were
a great deal, and Grandmother Stark arose and shook
out her black silk skirts. She had money, and loved
to dress in rich black silks and laces.

"It is very little, very little indeed," said she, and
she eyed Grandmother Wheeler's lovely old face,
like a wrinkled old rose as to color, faultless as to
feature, and swept about by the loveliest waves of
shining silver hair.

Then she went out of the room, and Grandmother
Wheeler, left alone, smiled. She knew the worth of
beauty for those who possess it and those who do not.
She had never been quite reconciled to her son's
marrying such a plain girl as Diantha Stark, although