"Pooh! I don't think she's a very good scholar," retorted Mabel, "though I suppose she does pretty well considering what she came from. Her father's just a common laborer, ain't he?"

"Mr. Miller's a carpenter," said Reuben quickly, "and he's well educated enough for Mr. Langley to enjoy his company. Excuse me, Mabel, Mr. Phillips seems to be looking for me."

Watching at a distance, Rusty saw Reuben turn away with flushed face and flashing eyes. It was so seldom that Reuben lost his patience that it seemed to her it must be really quite terrible to face his indignation. And warm-hearted and impulsive, she felt really sorry for Mabel.

"Going my way, Mabel?" she asked pleasantly as they met in the cloak-room a little later.

"Which is your way, Rusty," the other returned coolly, "home, or to the place where you work out?" Rusty colored.

"To the place where I work," she said shortly. "No, I'm not going that way." Mabel pinned her purple tam-o'-shanter on the very top of her thick blond hair in a way that made Rusty want to pull her own brown one down over her ears. "I'm going to wait here for my uncle and we're going down to see Mr. Langley. It's about my attending the academy. (Mr. Langley was chair

man of the school committee.) Has your father finished his job at the church, Rusty?"

"He gets through to-morrow," said Rusty shortly. "And what's he going to do then?" Mabel asked with such an unpleasant expression and tone that Rusty was filled with fury.

"What's that to you, Mabel Graham?" she demanded. "You don't know my father."

"Oh, I was just wondering whether something else might not catch fire," returned Mabel calmly. "You know they say Reuben Cartwright set that one in the vestry to get your pa a job."

Though the remark was quite untrue, Mabel felt justified in making it, in that her aunt had said the fire couldn't have happened more opportunely (she didn't use that word) if Reuben had set it himself. But neither Mrs. Mudge nor any one who knew Reuben or knew of him would have dreamed of accusing him of even far lesser wrong-doing. Every one believed in the boy absolutely, and not a few were as extravagantly enthusiastic as Miss Penny herself.

Now Rusty had turned so pale that the big girl beside her, who was perhaps thrice her size, actually trembled and edged away.

"Mabel Graham, how dare you!" the girl cried with blazing eyes. "How dare you say that wicked

thing about Reuben?" She stamped her foot. "Tell me!" she demanded. "Answer me."

Mabel backed gingerly out of the alcove.

"I'll tell you why," cried Rusty. "It's because you're a liar! You're almost a thief, leaving your own high school to come over and try to cheat us Farleigh girls and boys out of the prize, and you're altogether a liar.”

Mabel disappeared without a word.

Rusty

waited until she was cooler and then walked home alone, for every one else had gone. She said to herself that of course Reuben would never in the world do anything of that sort-not even if it were for some one else and harmed no one. None the less the accusation came back to her again and again, and troubled her vaguely for some time. When she seemed to have dismissed it finally, it would come back in another form. Would a boy like Reuben, she asked herself, so solidly good all through, ever do wrong if it were wholly for the sake of another? Though she felt he wouldn't have done that particular wrong, she never could answer the general question satisfactorily.