I thought of the big red apple in my pocket, and of the boy who had so carefully shaken the snow from off my father’s socks, and answered, ‘no’—thinking, the while, that I should say yes, if Walter had ever treated me as he did my playmate and friend Cora Blanchard. She was a beautiful young girl, a favourite with all, and possessing, as it seemed, but one glaring fault—a proneness to estimate people for their wealth rather than their worth. This in a measure was the result of her home-training, for her family, though far from being rich, were very aristocratic, and strove to keep their children as much as possible from associating with the ‘vulgar herd,’ as they styled the labouring class of the community. In her secret heart Cora had long cherished a preference for Walter, though never, until the morning of which I write, had it been so openly avowed. And Walter, too, while knowing how far above him she was in point of position, had dared to dream of a time when a bright-haired-woman, with a face much like that of the girlish Cora, would gladden his home, wherever it might be. That noon, as we sat around the glowing stove, we played as children will, and it came my turn to ‘answer truly whom I intended to marry.’ Without a thought of the big apple, the snowy socks, or of any one in particular, I replied unhesitatingly—‘The one I love best,’ and the question passed on to Cora, who was sitting by the side of Walter Beaumont. He had not joined in our sport, but now his eye left his book and rested upon Cora with an expression half fearful, half expectant. She, too, glanced at him, and as if the spirit of prophecy were upon her, she said—‘I shall not marry the one I love the best, but the one who has the most money, and can give me the handsomest diamonds. Sister Fanny has a magnificent set, and she looks so beautiful when she wears them.’ Instantly there fell a shadow on Walter Beaumont’s face, and his eye returned again to the Latin lettered page. But his thoughts were not of what was written there; he was thinking of the humble cottage on the borders of the wood, of the rag-carpet on the oaken floor, of the plain old-fashioned furniture, and of the gentle, loving woman who called him ‘her boy,’ and that spot her home. There were no diamonds there—no money—and Cora, if for these she married, would never be his wife. Early and late he toiled and studied, wearing his threadbare coat and coarse brown pants—for an education, such as he must have, admitted of no useless expenditure, and the costly gems which Cora craved were not his to give. In the pure, unselfish love springing up for her within his heart, there were diamonds of imperishable value, and these, together with the name he would make for himself, he would offer her, but nothing more, and for many weeks there was a shadow on his brow, though he was kind and considerate to her as of old.