“Why not?” asked Jenny, who always wished to know the reason of things.

“‘Cause it makes folks’ skin rough, and break out,” was Ella’s reply.

“Oh, pshaw!” returned Jenny, with a vain attempt to turn up her little bit of a nose.  “I play every day till I am most roasted, and my skin ain’t half as rough as yours.  But say, will you go with Mary? for if you don’t I shall!”

“I guess I won’t,” said Ella, and then, anxious to make Mary feel a little comfortable, she added, “Mamma says Mary’s coming to see me before long, and then we’ll have a real good time.  I’ve lots of pretty things—­two silk dresses, and I wear French gaiters like these every day.”

Glancing first at Mary, and then at Ella, Jenny replied, “Pho, that’s nothing; Mary knows more than you do, any way.  Why, she can say every speck of the multiplication table, and you only know the 10’s!”

When Ella was angry, or felt annoyed, she generally cried; and now declaring that she knew more than the 10’s she began to cry; and announcing her intention of never speaking to Jenny again “as long as she lived and breathed,” she walked away, while Mary and Jenny proceeded together towards the burying ground.  With a bitter cry Mary threw herself upon her mother’s grave, and wept for a long, long time.

“It would not be so bad,” said Mary, “if there was any body left, but I am all alone in the world.  Ella does not love me—­nobody loves me.”

It was in vain that Jenny told her of Billy Bender’s love, of her own, and George Moreland’s too.  Mary only wept the more, wishing that she had died, and Allie too.  At last remembering that she had left Sal Furbush behind her, and knowing that it was time for her to go, she arose, and leaning on Jenny, whose arm was passed lovingly about her, she started to return.

Afternoon service had commenced ere they reached the church, and as Mary had no desire of again subjecting her bonnet to the ridicule of Rose Lincoln, and as Jenny had much rather stay out doors in the shade, they sat down upon the steps, wondering where Sal Furbush had taken herself.  “I mean to look in and see if she is here,” said Jenny, and advancing on tiptoe to the open door, she cast her eye over the people within; then clapping her hand over her mouth to keep back a laugh, she returned to Mary, saying, “Oh, if it isn’t the funniest thing in the world.  There sits Sal in Mrs. Campbell’s pew, fanning herself with that great palm-leaf, and shaking her fist at Ella every time she stirs!”

It seems that Sal had amused herself during the intermission by examining and trying the different pews, and taking a fancy to Mrs. Campbell’s, she had snugly ensconced herself in one corner of it, greatly to the fear and mortification of Ella, who chanced to be the only one of the family present.  When service was out, Sal gathered up her umbrella and courtesying her way through the crowd, soon found Mary and started for home, declaring the clergyman to be “a well-read grammarian, only a trifle too emphatic in his delivery.”