“Esther, where are you?” a voice from the floor below here called out.

“We are up in your room looking at the sunset; it’s lovely; come up and see it,” Esther called back.  And the next moment Laura was being introduced to “My cousin, David Wybern,”—­a tall, good-looking boy of fifteen or sixteen, with beautiful dark eyes like Mrs. Bodn’s.  The next moment after that, when this tall, good-looking boy, in addressing Mrs. Bodn, called her “Aunt Rebecca,” like a flash these thoughts went flying through Laura’s mind,—­

“A model for Rebecca the Jewess, and her own name Rebecca, and her daughter’s and her nephew’s names,—­Esther, David,—­these also Hebrew names!” What did it signify?  Kitty—­Kitty would say that it proved she was right,—­that they were the very people she had said they were.  But, oh, they were not; they were not of that common kind that Kitty had classed so scornfully!  No matter if her mother had been a model years ago, it was through poverty, of course, and she was very brave not to be ashamed of it; and Esther,—­Esther was lovely, a girl to be good to, to be true to, and she, Laura Brooks, would be good to her and true to her, no matter what happened.  Poor Laura, she little knew how this resolve would be put to the test within the next few hours, for she could not foresee that the fact of the coachman’s forgetfulness to call for her, as he had been ordered to do, and her consequent acceptance of David Wybern’s attendance, was to bring such a storm about her.  It had seemed the simplest thing in the world, when half-past six struck, and no carriage came for her, to accept David’s attendance, and just as simple, when the street cars rushed by, without an inch of standing-room, to walk on and up over the hill to Beacon Street.  But in this walk it happened that her brother had passed her as he drove by with one of his friends, and he had gone straight home and into the dining-room with the words, “What does this mean?” and then he proceeded to tell how he had passed his sister accompanied by a young man or boy who looked to him like one of the clerks in Weyman & Co.’s importing-house.

What did it mean, indeed?  Her father and mother also wondered and exclaimed; and when Laura appeared, and told them what it meant, there was a general outcry of disapproval and criticism, led on by her brother, who told her she should have waited and sent a message to them by this boy, instead of permitting him to walk home with her.  In vain Laura spoke of the boy’s good manners, of the refined aspect of the little home which she had just visited, and the intelligence and dignity of Mrs. Bodn and her daughter.  Nothing she said seemed to ameliorate the disapproval or criticism; and at last, stung by a sore sense of injustice, the girl turned upon her father and said, “Papa, I’ve always heard you say that everybody should be judged by their worth, and you’ve often and often quoted from that poem of Robert Burns that you are so fond of, about honest poverty, and I remember two lines particularly, that you seemed to like most of all,—­