As they took leave, Thorne held her hand in a warmer clasp than he had ever before ventured on, and his voice was really troubled as he said: 

“I can’t tell you how worried I am about your beautiful cup.  I never had a small accident trouble me to the same extent before.  I feel as though a serious calamity had befallen.  There was no tradition, no association, I hope, which made the cup of special value, beyond its beauty, and the fact of its being an heirloom.”

Pocahontas was too truthful for evasion.

“There were associations of course,” she answered gently, “with that cup as well as with the rest of the china.  It has been in the family so many generations, you know.  Don’t reproach yourself any more, please—­remember ’twas as much my fault as yours.  And broken things need not remain so,” with an upward glance and a bright smile, “they can be mended.  I shall have the cup riveted.”

She would not tell him of the superstition; there was no use in making him feel worse about the accident than he felt already.  She did not wish him to be uncomfortable, and had gladly assumed an equal share of blame.  It was extremely silly in her to allow her mind to dwell on a foolish old tradition.  How could the breakage of a bit of china, no matter how precious, presage misfortune?  It was ill doing that entailed ill fortune, not blind chance, or heathen fate.  She would think no more of foolish old portents.

Still!—­she wished the cup had not been broken—­wished with all her heart that it had not been that cup.

CHAPTER VIII.

Blanche Smith was not at all a clever girl—­not like Norma.  Norma had always stood first in her classes, had borne off prizes and medals, but with Blanche it was otherwise.  No amount of coaching ever sufficed to pull her through ah examination, or to remove her from the middle of her class.  Blanche was a dunce confessedly; she hated books, and the acquisition of knowledge by labor.  If people told her things and took the trouble to explain them, she remembered them sometimes; sometimes not.  To accomplishments she took as a duck to water—­danced beautifully, was a fair musician, sang with taste and sweetness, and chattered French with absolute self-confidence and a tolerable accent, although her rudimentary knowledge of the tongue was of the vaguest.

At school she had been more popular than her cleverer sister; the girls affirmed that she was sweeter tempered and more obliging.  At home also, she was the favorite.  Her father idolized her, her brothers domineered over, and petted her; even the mother made an unconscious difference between the girls; she admired Norma more—­was prouder of her, but she depended upon Blanche.  Norma saw the difference, and sometimes it vexed her, but generally she was indifferent to it.  Her people did not understand her; she was not like them; when barn-door fowls unwittingly