disappointed when Carrie said she was too tired to sing."

"You mean the evening when the Scobells were there, and Carrie had
been doing parish work all the day, and she came in looking so pale
and fagged? I thought mother was hard on her that night. Carrie cried
about it afterward in my room."

"Oh, Esther, I thought she spoke so gently! She only said, 'Would it
not have been better to have done a little less to-day, and reserved
yourself for our friends? We ought never to disappoint people if we
can help it.'"

"Yes; only mother looked as if she were really displeased; and
Carrie could not bear that; she said in her last letter that mother
did not sympathize entirely in her work, and that she missed me
dreadfully, for the whole atmosphere was rather chilling sometimes."

Jessie looked a little sorry at this. "No one could think that of
your home, Esther." And she sighed, for her home was very different
from ours. Her parents were dead, and as she was an only child, she
had never known the love of brother or sister; and the aunt who
brought her up was a strict narrow-minded sort of person, with
manners that must have been singularly uncongenial to my
affectionate, simple-minded Jessie. Poor Jessie! I could not help
giving her one of my bear-like hugs at this, so well did I know the
meaning of that sigh; and there is no telling into what channel our
talk would have drifted, only just at that moment Belle Martin, the
pupil-teacher, appeared in sight, walking very straight and fast, and
carrying her chin in an elevated fashion, a sort of practical
exposition of Madame's "Heads up, young ladies!" But this was only