She stopped abruptly, seeing the tears of distress in Maggie's eyes, and made an attempt to laugh.
"There!" she exclaimed. "Now that I've poured out all my troubles and eased my mind, I feel better. Tell me about the girls. What have they been doing this week?"
Much relieved, Maggie produced the photograph of herself, and began an enthusiastic account of her Hallowe'en experiences. She began with the visit to Clovercroft, and as she described the handsomely furnished music-room, with its luxurious rugs and grand piano, and the priceless pictures that had been brought from over the sea, its lace curtains and white tiled hearth and andirons that shone like gold, it seemed to her that the little cabin had never looked so bare. Its chinked walls and puncheon floor stood out in pitiful contrast. The only picture in the room was an unframed chromo tacked above the mantel.
As she described the masquerade frolic, she contrasted Roney's lonely shut-in life with her own and the other girls' at the seminary. A realization of its meagreness and emptiness stole over her till she could hardly keep the tears back. A great longing sprang up in her warm little heart to do something that would compensate as far as possible for all that she had missed. Acting on that impulse, as she reached the climax of her story and drew out the cherished photograph of the Princess, she thrust it into Roney's hand, saying, hurriedly, "Here, you can have it, Roney. I'd rather you would have it than me."
Corono held the picture eagerly, studying every detail of the beautiful little medallion. The fair hair with its coronet of pearls, the white dove nestled against her shoulder, as she had held it when she sang "Flutter and fly, flutter and fly, bear him my heart of gold,"--all seemed doubly attractive now with the play fresh in her mind. Besides, it was the most beautiful picture she had ever seen in all the sixteen years of her lonely, unsatisfied life.
The intuition that always helped her to understand her little friend made her understand now in a way that the gift meant a sacrifice, and she exclaimed, impulsively, "Oh, Maggie! I don't feel as if I ought to take it from you. You keep it, and just lend it to me once in awhile."