That morning Cora wrote to me slyly on her slate: "I don't care if mother _does_ say Walter Beaumont is _poor_ as _poverty_--I like him best of anybody in the world--don't you?" 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 favorite 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 laboring 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 beautifully when she wears them."