42 . THE CINDERELLA FROCK.

me. Come, dear Rovina, you must go in too,
if only just to see the pictures.”’

Rovina drew back at first, but a second’
invitation, accompanied by a cheerful smile
and nod, drove away all her sour misgivings,
like ice before the Spring. And when Alice
bounded on before her to present her flower
offering, and stood there with her blue eyes
upturned, looking so radiantly beautiful, even
she could not but feel it was the spirit under-
neath that gave the face its charm.

And then Rovina thought of her own going
home. Instead of carrying sunshine in, how
often and often had she felt that she must be
the great sorrow of the house. She had a
mother too, indeed, Rovina acknowledged to
herself, one of the best mothers in the world,
and a little baby brother, and an elder sister,
and a bright, cheerful new house had they to