"I have offered Joseph Laird Bassett the loan of a hundred dollars, if he will take it, to get his wife and child out of that place and to send them out of town. That, I think, Hannah, should end our interest in their affairs. Like enough I shall never see the hundred again. If he had ten thousand dollars, come by either honestly or dishonestly, and wasted it gambling in stocks, he is not much to be pitied." "Oh, the poor baby!" murmured Carolyn's mother. "I know. But there are thousands of other babies in this city quite as deserving of pity. And to help a wastrel like Joe, and that woman who is evidently the cause of his downfall, seems to me to be positively wrong. Such a fellow as he, is not to be trusted in any particular. I shall watch him very closely as long as he remains with the _Beacon_. And unless he shows more promise than he has so far, he won't last long." "The poor woman!" murmured his wife. "As for _that_," said Papa Cameron, "taking all Henry Bassett says about her with more than a grain of salt, it was her influence that caused Joe Bassett's downfall. And--well, it makes me wonder now what ever became of that twenty-dollar note I gave him for the broken go-cart. We don't know that it was returned to the man who gave it to Carolyn. Not at all! Of course, it was his wife's to do with as she pleased. But--but--Well! I am sorry Snuggy ever got acquainted with her." "It is what I have always said," declared Hannah Cameron. "Letting her go about so much alone, with only Prince, as we do, and picking up acquaintances just as she sees fit, is all wrong." "Oh, now, Mamma!" exclaimed Mr. Cameron. "Snuggy doesn't often pick 'em wrong." This all puzzled Carolyn May very much. The poor little baby! And the pale lady whom she had last seen so weak and wan! Why should they be made to suffer if Mr. Laird had been naughty? Why, it was just as though Prince should be punished because _she_ did wrong! Faithful as Carolyn May was in her friendships, she could not give her thoughts entirely to the pale lady and her troubles just at this time. Carolyn and her particular friend, Edna Price, who lived across the hall from the Camerons, were having dresses made for graduation day, just alike. Their mothers had used the same pattern in cutting out the frocks, the material was the same, the trimming was the same, and the only difference was in the hue of the broad sashes the little girls wore--Edna's being cherry-red and Carolyn's blue. "If we aren't twins," Carolyn observed, "our dresses are. So of course they must have different coloured ribbons so as to tell 'em apart." Carolyn May stood well in her classes. She was, indeed, a prize scholar, and even Johnny O'Harrity had to admit her high standing. "For Johnny, you know," whispered Carolyn to her mother, as they came home from the school exercises, "didn't get a prize at all. He only got horrible mention!"