“That is all,” said Maggie. “It sounds as solemn and unfriendly as if one were about to be tried for some capital offense.” “It’s the auction, of course,” repeated Nancy. “Those girls thought they had kept it so quiet, but some one must have ‘peached,’ I suppose, to curry favor. Whatever made you go, Maggie? You know you have never mixed yourself up with that Day, and Merton, and Marsh set. As to that poor Polly Singleton, there’s no harm in her, but she’s a perfect madcap. What could have possessed you to go?” “My evil genius,” repeated Maggie in a gloomy tone. “You don’t suppose I _wished_ to be there, Nancy; but that horrid little Merton girl said something taunting, and then I forgot myself. Oh, dear, Nancy! what shall I ever do with that other self of mine? It will ruin me in the end. It gets stronger every day.” Maggie sat down on the sofa. Nancy suddenly knelt by her side. “Dear Meg,” she said caressingly, “you’re the noblest, and the sweetest, and the most beautiful girl at St. Benet’s! Why can’t you live up to your true self?” “There are two selfs in me,” replied Maggie. “And if one even approaches the faintest semblance of angel-hood, the other is black as pitch. There, it only wastes time to talk the thing over. I’m in for the sort of scrape I hate most. See, Nancy, I bought this at the auction.” She opened her wardrobe, and taking out Polly Singleton’s magnificent eighty-guinea sealskin jacket, slipped it on. “Don’t I look superb?” said Maggie. She shut the wardrobe-door and surveyed herself in its long glass. Brown was Maggie Oliphant’s color. It harmonized with the soft tints of her delicately rounded face, with the rich color in her hair, with the light in her eyes. It added to all these charms, softening them, giving to them a more perfect luster. “Oh, Maggie!” said Nancy, clasping her hands, “you ought always to be dressed as you are now.” Maggie dropped her arms suddenly to her sides. The jacket, a little too large for her, slid off her shoulders and lay in a heap on the floor. “What?” she said suddenly. “Am I never to show my true and real self? Am I always to be disguised in sham beauty and sham goodness? Oh, Nancy, Nancy! if there is a creature I hate— I _hate—_ her name is Maggie Oliphant!” Nancy picked up the sealskin jacket and put it back into the wardrobe. “I am sorry you went to the auction, Maggie,” she repeated, “and I’m sorry still to find you bought poor Polly Singleton’s sealskin. Well, it’s done now, and we have to consider how to get you out of this scrape. There’s no time for you to indulge in that morbid talk of yours to-day, Maggie, darling. Let us consider what’s best to be done.”