"What is the matter?" asked Sadie, mistaking the cause of her changed expression. "Don't you want us to be in it?" "Want you to be in it! Of course I do," cried Susie. "You must think me a monster of selfishness. I only wish you could all be queens." "We are satisfied to be your subjects," said Sadie, putting her arm around Susie, as they all started by twos and threes for the school, as the bell was ringing. "I wish I'd never seen that verse," thought Susie, not heeding Sadie's chatter, as they went up the walk. "It's just going to spoil the whole thing." "Here comes Florence Tracy," remarked Sadie, as a carriage stopped at the foot of the walk, and a young girl alighted. "Do you know, Susie, I don't believe she has a good time at all, if she does drive to school, and live in the handsomest house in town. I fancy her uncle isn't very kind to her, for she never seems very happy. Just look: don't you think she has a sad face?" "I don't know," answered Susie, anxious to change the subject. "Isn't the parsing hard for to-day? Miss Page gives such long lessons." But Sadie was far too interested in Squire Tracy's spirited horses, with their gilded harness, to turn her thoughts to discussing the length or difficulty of any lesson. "Wouldn't I like to jump in!" she exclaimed. "It's just the morning for a drive." Then, in a lower tone: "Strange that Florence never asks any of the girls. There's room for four, yet every afternoon she goes for hours all alone." "Hush!" cautioned Susie; "she's right behind us." Florence joined them with a good-morning, and the three went up the steps together, Susie and Florence stopping a moment on the porch to talk over a troublesome sentence in the parsing. "I know she didn't hear you," said Susie, in answer to Sadie's anxious question as she passed her seat, "for she is as pleasant as can be." "Perhaps she _would_ invite us," said Sadie, striving to make amends for her hasty speech, "if the Squire would let her. Poor girl! I really pity her." Susie took her seat, and glanced across to Florence's. "She _does_ look sad," she was forced to acknowledge; "but then deep mourning makes almost every one look so. Sadie is always getting up things to make one uncomfortable;" and she tried to busy herself in arranging her desk, and so forget the sad face opposite. "I'm sure she has everything money can buy." Here Conscience asked, "But are you not really far richer, with a loving father and mother, and a bright happy home?" "Yes," thought Susie. "I wouldn't exchange places with her for all her pretty things, though I did think yesterday I'd give anything for that watch she wore. But then think of baby! How cunning she was this morning!--worth more than all the watches in the world!" and Susie almost felt the little arms about her neck. [TO BE CONTINUED.] PINAFORE RHYMES.--(_Continued_.) [Illustration]