ALLY.

CHAPTER I.

“What have you done with those new overshoes, Ally?”

“Put ’em away.”

“Well, you can just go and get ’em, then.  Come, hurry up, for I want to wear ’em down town.”

But Ally didn’t move.

“Ally, do you hear?” cried her cousin Florence.

“Yes, I hear, but I ain’t a-going to mind you.  The rubbers are mine, and you’ve worn ’em about enough already; you’re stretching ’em all out, for your foot is bigger than mine.”

“No such thing.  I’m not hurting them in the least.”

“Yes, you are; and you are taking the gloss all off ’em, too, and I want ’em to look new when I wear ’em in Boston.”

“Well, I never heard of such selfish, stingy meanness as this.  It’s raining hard, and you’d let me go out and get my feet sopping wet rather than lend me your new rubbers.”

“Why don’t you wear your own old ones?”

“Because they leak.”

“They’ve leaked ever since I got this new pair!” retorted Ally, scornfully.  “But it isn’t these rubbers only; you’re always borrowing my things.  There’s my blue jacket; you’ve worn it till the edge is threadbare, and you’ve worn my brown hat until it looks as shabby—­and—­there! you’ve got my silver bangle on now!  You’re no better than a thief, Florence Fleming!”

“A thief! that’s a nice pretty thing to say to me!  I should like to know who buys your things for you?  Isn’t it my father and Uncle John?  I should like to know where you’d be, Alice Fleming, if it wasn’t for Uncle John and father.  Here, take your old bangle and keep it, and everything else that you’ve got.  I never want to see anything of yours again; and I’m glad you’re going off to Boston to Uncle John’s for the rest of the winter, and I wish you’d stay there and never come back here,—­I do!”

“I wish so too.  Nobody in Uncle John’s family would ever be so mean as to fling it in my face that I was a poor little beggar of an orphan.”

“Uncle John’s family!  Uncle John’s wife said the last time she was here that she dreaded the winter on your account,—­there!”

“Aunt Kate—­said that?”

“Yes, she did; I heard her.”

A strange look came into Ally’s eyes, and all the pretty color faded from her cheeks, as she cried out in a hoarse, passionate voice,—­

“You’re a cruel, bad girl, Florence Fleming, and I hope some day you’ll have something cruel and bad come to you to punish you!” and with these words the excited child flung herself across her little bed, and burst into a paroxysm of stormy sobs and tears.

“Here, here, what’s the matter now?” called out Mrs. Fleming, Florence’s mother, coming across the hall and pushing the bedroom door open.

“Ask Ally,” answered Florence, coolly,—­so coolly, so calmly, that it was quite natural to suppose that she was much less to blame in the present disturbance than her cousin; and as poor Ally was past speaking, Florence had a double advantage, and Mrs. Fleming, glancing from one girl to the other, thought she understood the situation perfectly, and in consequence said rather sharply,—­