with white china buttons down the back, and round straw hats bought at
wholesale. But Lovey Mary's rebellion of spirit was something that
time only served to increase. It had started with Kate Rider, who used
to pinch her, and laugh at her, and tell the other girls to "get on to
her curves." Curves had signified something dreadful to Lovey Mary;
she would have experienced real relief could she have known that she
did not possess any. It was not Kate Rider, however, who was causing
the present tears; she had left the home two years before, and her
name was not allowed to be mentioned even in whispers. Neither was it
rebellion against the work that had cast Lovey Mary into such depths
of gloom; fourteen beds had been made, fourteen heads had been combed,
and fourteen wriggling little bodies had been cheerfully buttoned into
starchy blue ginghams exactly like her own.

Something deeper and more mysterious was fermenting in her soul--
something that made her long passionately for the beautiful things of
life, for love and sympathy and happiness; something that made her
want to be good, yet tempted her constantly to rebel against her
environs. It was just the world-old spirit that makes the veriest
little weed struggle through a chink in the rock and reach upward
toward the sun.

"What's the matter with your hair, Lovey Mary? It looks so funny,"
asked a small girl, coming up the steps.

"If anybody asts you, tell 'em you don't know," snapped Lovey Mary.

"Well, Miss Bell says for you to come down to the office," said the
other, unabashed. "There's a lady down there--a lady and a baby. Me
and Susie peeked in. Miss Bell made the lady cry; she made her wipe