Florence’s eyes no longer looked dreamy, but flashed anger. “I think you’re perfectly horrid,” she exclaimed. “Come on, March.” Sally, nothing abashed, walked across the school yard to where Ellen and Caro were sitting. She had made Ellen’s cause hers, and meant to so assert it. Hereafter Florence’s clique would no more name her as one of them. It was quite true that Caro was assiduous in her attentions, for scarce a day passed that she did not offer up something upon the altar of her friendship,—a particularly big red apple, a package of fudge, a little basket of persimmons, one of chinquapins, or of nuts. Ellen accepted all these gratefully, and though she rather wearied of Caro’s caresses and words of endearment, often they comforted the lonely girl, who no longer received such marks of affection, Miss Rindy not being given to demonstration. However, she gave a sturdy sort of love to her young cousin, while her keen sense of humor saved situations which might have become difficult, or even tragic. “We’re none of us paragons of perfection; you are not any more than the rest of the world,” she said one day when Ellen was repeating some of Caro’s remarks. “Compliments and appreciation are all very well in their way; they are the ice-cream and cake of life, but if you are going to depend upon them for a steady diet, you will have spiritual indigestion as sure as you’re born. We need to be bucked up by good honest criticism; that’s the roast beef.” “And what is the bread and butter?” Ellen asked laughing. “Work, like bread, is the staff of life; and butter, well, butter is the consciousness of having done our work as well as we could; the more you slight it the thinner it spreads.” “I suppose that’s true,” returned Ellen thoughtfully. “But don’t you like compliments, Cousin Rindy?” “I suppose, like other fools, I do, but I shouldn’t; they’re weakening to the character, they breed self-conceit, develop an inflated ego. Of all insufferable people, conceited ones are the worst. I’ve known some, a good many, too, who always set the highest value upon their own performances, but never valued what others did for them; placed their own affairs in the limelight, and never in the least appreciated what others did, in fact underrated the good deeds of others and vaunted their own.” “One does like to be encouraged. I’m afraid I do need encouragement.” “Ah, but encouragement is a different thing from vain compliments.” “Didn’t your mother compliment you and commend you for things when you did them well?” Miss Rindy was silent a moment and a grim look passed over her face. “No, I can’t say that she did. My brother was always the favorite. She expected everything of me, but I can’t say that I was fed up on compliments.” “I didn’t know you had a brother. Is he living?” “Yes, married and living in Seattle.” “Oh.” Ellen wondered why she had never heard of him.