“It seems to be my luck to be crucified at every point of the compass,” she said at last.  “First two days you thought I was a pauper, now you will think I’m a fraud.  All of you will believe I bought an expensive box, and then was too poor to put anything but a restaurant sandwich in it.  You must stop till I prove to you that I’m not.”

Elnora gathered up the lids, and kicked the sandwich into a corner.

“I had milk in that bottle, see!  And custard in the cup.  There was salad in the little box, fried chicken in the large one, and nut sandwiches in the tray.  You can see the crumbs of all of them.  A man set a dog on a child who was so starved he was stealing apples.  I talked with him, and I thought I could bear hunger better, he was such a little boy, so I gave him my lunch, and got the sandwich at the restaurant.”

Elnora held out the box.  The girls were laughing by that time.  “You goose,” said one, “why didn’t you give him the money, and save your lunch?”

“He was such a little fellow, and he really was hungry,” said Elnora.  “I often go without anything to eat at noon in the fields and woods, and never think of it.”

She closed the box and set it beside the lunches of other country pupils.  While her back was turned, into the room came the girl of her encounter on the first day, walked to the rack, and with an exclamation of approval took down Elnora’s hat.

“Just the thing I have been wanting!” she said.  “I never saw such beautiful quills in all my life.  They match my new broadcloth to perfection.  I’ve got to have that kind of quills for my hat.  I never saw the like!  Whose is it, and where did it come from?”

No one said a word, for Elnora’s question, the reply, and her answer, had been repeated.  Every one knew that the Limberlost girl had come out ahead and Sadie Reed had not been amiable, when the little flourish had been added to Elnora’s name in the algebra class.  Elnora’s swift glance was pathetic, but no one helped her.  Sadie Reed glanced from the hat to the faces around her and wondered.

“Why, this is the Freshman section, whose hat is it?” she asked again, this time impatiently.

“That’s the tassel of the cornstock,” said Elnora with a forced laugh.

The response was genuine.  Every one shouted.  Sadie Reed blushed, but she laughed also.

“Well, it’s beautiful,” she said, “especially the quills.  They are exactly what I want.  I know I don’t deserve any kindness from you, but I do wish you would tell me at whose store you found those quills.”

“Gladly!” said Elnora.  “You can’t buy quills like those at a store.  They are from a living bird.  Phoebe Simms gathers them in her orchard as her peacocks shed them.  They are wing quills from the males.”

Then there was perfect silence.  How was Elnora to know that not a girl there would have told that?

“I haven’t a doubt but I can get you some,” she offered.  “She gave Aunt Margaret a large bunch, and those are part of them.  I am quite sure she has more, and would spare some.”