Ruth made an indifferent reply, and hastened to change the subject, for she did not care to discuss her cousin's shortcomings with one whom she knew but slightly. Very few words passed between the cousins upon their return home that evening; but on their way to school the next morning Julia asked scornfully, "Do you still intend to cultivate your aristocratic acquaintance, Ruth?" "I shall do as I please," said the other shortly. The girls at Miss Elgin's were mostly the children of wealthy parents, but unhappily many of them, though rich and fashionable, were sadly lacking in refinement of heart and mind. Money was the god revered and worshipped in most of their homes, the one thing talked of and held in honour, and it was not surprising that the girls, from constantly hearing their neighbours' worth reckoned solely by the amount of money they possessed, had come to regard it as the chief good, and to consider the want of it as something like a crime. Julia had been reared in a somewhat different atmosphere, but she had adopted the tone of her school-fellows, and even surpassed them in scorn and disdain for those who were poor or unfortunate. But she was about to meet with a terrible humiliation. CHAPTER XII. JULIA'S HUMILIATION. A tender conscience is easily aroused, and Ruth's had been troubling her since the previous afternoon. She knew that although she had done right in befriending Mabel she had not done it in a Christian spirit. She almost decided that she ought to beg her cousin's pardon, and was even thinking what it would be advisable to say, when Julia's question stirred her worst feelings to activity, and she answered curtly that she should do as she pleased. A lively conversation was being carried on in the cloak-room, but suddenly ceased as they entered. The exciting cause of it was Ethel Thompson, whose busy tongue often brought both herself and others into trouble. She had carried home a full account of the quarrel between the cousins the day before, and had concluded by imitating Julia's haughty manner when she said, "If any one belonging to me had ever been a bankrupt, I should never show my face in the town again." "Humph! Did she say that?" asked Mr. Thompson. "Well 'people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.'" "Why do you say that?" inquired Ethel curiously. "Because her own father failed some years ago." "Are you quite sure?" "Oh yes, I remember it very well, though I suppose it must have been quite nine or ten years ago, time flies so fast. But he is a very prosperous man now." Ethel did not wait to hear more, but went to school next day full of the idea of humbling Julia by means of this wonderful piece of news. She had already whispered it to two or three girls when the cousins appeared at the door and the bell rang for class.