But Val wagged her head wisely and tossed the jack-stones in the air. Even Emmie, with her weak chest, when she _did_ go to school, was expected to come home wearing, on a narrow pink ribbon, the Primary medal--a golden shield, with "No Pains, no Gains," graven on its face. Val, being "Preparatory," now wore the one inscribed "Perseverantia omnia vincit" on a ribbon of pale blue, that most adorable of shades. Emmie loved green, but also bore with red; Val would have nothing of her "very best," if she could help it, that was not blue. It was not that she had quite recovered the shock of that discovery in the parlor mirror, although she had made up her mind, not having read _Jane Eyre_, that biographers rightly suppressed the fact that many a heroine had been in childhood not only wicked, but ugly, too; it was not that she realized then that blue was "her color," as the ladies say; but something in her responded to the hue. It made her happy just to open the drawer where her blue sash was kept. In visions of the future, she had never in her life seen herself clothed in anything but pale blue. Sometimes the satin was broidered with silver wheat, sometimes with pearls, but the blueness of it never faded or lost favor. It was the rule of the house not to discuss the price of things. Money was not mentioned, except in a wide impersonal way. It was difficult to believe for a long time, but it came out by implication, that they were poor; otherwise Emmie would never have begged in vain for the charming green hat with plumes in Mrs. Crumbaker's millinery window. The "not suitable for a little girl" was too thin an excuse; besides, unsuitability could not be the ground of gran'ma's displeasure at the purchase of a new microscope, after the shock of seeing what the amount of her son's book bill was at the New Year. Very little was said on these occasions, but Val was angrily conscious that her father was made to feel uncomfortable. A grown man, and a hero to boot! It was strangely short-sighted of him to let his mother keep his money for him--as apparently he did--for he evidently didn't much relish asking for it, and he might have learned from Val's experience that she didn't like you to spend your pocket-money, except at long intervals, in miserable driblets. There was only one occasion when her father seemed more unwilling to open his purse than his mother did. It was when the doctor's bill of two years' standing was left at the door. It was addressed to John Gano, Esq., and when he opened it he said, "Damnation!" Val, who was doing lessons in a far corner, nearly dropped her slate. Mrs. Gano, instead of reproving her son roundly, looked over his shoulder and said, quietly: "Very moderate indeed;" and she tried to take the paper out of his hand. But he got up hastily, and paced the long room with knitted brows. "I don't see how it's to be met," he said, presently.