are clever, you are extremely worldly wise. There are certain people who
would commend you; but you are not like the rest of us. You are not like
Gwin for instance, nor like Bessie, nor like me. Yes, I will frankly say
so, I am better than you, Elma. I have not got your double motives for
everything. You are only a girl now; I don't know what you will be when
you are a woman!"

The thought of the eight sovereigns so comfortably reposing in her
pocket made Elma able to bear this very direct attack. She determined to
take it good-humoredly; there was no use whatever in quarreling with
Alice. Accordingly she said cheerfully:

"You may think what you like of me, Ally, but I hope in the course of
years that you will find I am not so bad as you paint me."

Shortly afterward the girls parted, and each went on her way to her
special home. Bessie ran briskly up the short avenue which led to her
house, waving farewells to her companions as she did so. Alice and Kitty
were obliged to content themselves one with the other; and Elma, in the
highest good-humor, her heart bubbling over with bliss, departed in the
direction of her own humbler residence. She had to walk quite a mile and
a half, and at the end of that time she found herself in a much poorer
part of the large suburb where Middleton School was situated. The houses
here were of a humble description--not even semidetached, but standing
in long, dismal rows, a good many of them backing on to a
railway-cutting. These houses boasted of no small gardens, but ran flush
with the road. They were built of the universal yellow brick, and were
about as ugly as they could well be.

Elma paused at No. 124 Constantine Road. As she did so, a high, rasping,