the cool, pure lily, and wept into it great burning tears. Poor,
ignorant soul! She wanted, oh, how she _wanted_ Dirk to be brave
and good like Mark Calkins--her one type of manhood. Yet she did not
know that she was crushing out the germ which might have grown in his
heart. True, she knew herself to be very different from Sallie, but the
thought, poor soul, that that was because Mark was so different from
Dirk.

Isn't it a pity that the sweet-faced lily could not have told its tender
story to both these ignorant ones?




CHAPTER XV.

"WHAT MADE HER DIFFERENT?"


"I have heard a good deal about your sister that has interested me. Do
you like to talk of her?"

This was the question which Gracie Dennis asked of young Ried as he
stood beside her at the piano. She had been playing, and had come to
the music alcove for the purpose of turning her music; but now she
was touching sweet chords here and there aimlessly, and waiting for
his answer.

At the further end of the parlor Mrs. Roberts was entertaining a caller;
but the distance between them was so great that, in effect, the young