piano–into the place still warm from the presence of Pamela–and she railed at the sorrow of her schoolmates, Josie and Birdaline. Her voice was as sharp as the old piano-strings:

"That song's all wrong, seems to me, girls. Pretty toon and nice words, but I can't make out why ever'body feels sorry for the last rose of summer. It's the luckiest rose in the world. The rest of 'em have bloomed too soon or just when all the other roses are blooming, or when people are sort of tired of roses. But this one is saved up till the last. And then, when the garden is all dying out and the bushes are just dead stalks and the other roses are wilted and brown and folks say, 'I'd give anything for the sight of a rose,' along comes this rose and–blooms alone!

"It's that way in my little yard. There's always a last rose that comes when the rest have gone to seed, and that's the one I prize. Seems to me it has the laugh on all the rest. The song's all wrong, I tell you, girls!"

This heresy had the usual success of attacks on sacred texts–the orthodox paid no heed to the value of the argument; they simply resented its impudence. But all they said to Deborah was an indulgent "That's so, Debby," and a polite "I never thought of that."

As Deborah turned away, triumphant, to repeat what she had just said to Mr. Maugans, she overheard Birdaline murmur to Josie in a kinship of contempt, "Poor old Debby!"

And Josie consented: "She can't understand! She never was a rose."

CHAPTER II

It was as if Birdaline and Josie had slipped a knife under Deborah's left slipped a knife under Deborah's left shoulder-blade and pushed it into her heart. She felt a mortal wound. She clung to the piano and remembered something she had overheard Birdaline say in exactly that tone far back in that primeval epoch when Debby had been sixteen–as sweetless a sixteen as a girl ever endured.

Deborah had not been pretty then, or ever before, or since. But she had been a girl, and had expected to have lovers to select a husband from.

Yet lovers were denied to Deborah. The boys had been fond of her and nice to her. For Deborah was a good fellow; she was never jealous or exacting. She was jolly, understood a joke, laughed a lot, and danced well enough. She never whined or threatened if a fellow neglected her or forgot to call for his dance or pay a party-call–or anything. She accepted attentions 

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