Aline ran up to her room, full of pleasurable anticipation, for she was an expert skater, and always enjoyed being on the ice. A girlish impulse prompted her to make herself as pretty as possible. She let down her dark, curling hair loosely over her shoulders, and donned a dark-red cashmere trimmed with silvery fur, a warm, wadded jacket of red, and a jaunty fur cap having a little bird perched on one side. Then she sallied forth with Max and Mrs. Rodney, who was so warmly wrapped up in cloth and fur and thick veils that barely the tip of her aristocratic-looking nose was visible to the beholder. They had a bracing walk of half a mile in the cool, fresh air of the clear, wintery morning, and then the river burst upon their view like a sheet of silver, dotted about with merry youths and maidens who were sliding merrily about over the crystal expanse, without a thought of danger. Many of them were Aline’s old friends and companions with whom she had been a prime favorite until that mysterious trouble fell upon her. Her heart warmed to them as she saw the smiling, familiar faces and heard their merry voices. A longing came over her to be friends with them again, to touch their hands, to hear their voices talking to her in the old friendly, familiar way. Everything was so gay, so merry, so unceremonious, she half hoped they would relent and welcome her to her old place among them. Poor Aline! The light came into her violet eyes, the rich color flushed her cheeks at the thought. She looked wistfully at the groups that dotted the shore and the river as she came up. Her heart beat with anxiety and expectation. Would any one speak to her? Would any one of all these, her old friends, give her one friendly clasp of the hand? Vain thought, vain hope! As they saw her coming among them with her eager, expectant face and her winning beauty, every one turned aside with cold, averted looks, and scarcely restrained sneers. In a moment she stood solitary, with her mother and Max, in a spot where only a moment ago more than a score of people had been. They had tacitly deserted and ignored her. That strange sense of loneliness in crowds so often felt by the sensitive heart came over her now. Something like a strangling gasp came from her lips, and then she shut them tightly together, and held her small head high, with a proud, stag-like movement that was almost defiance. In her heart she was saying, bitterly: “They may scorn me as they will, but they shall not crush me! I have done no wrong, and in time I shall live down their cruel slanders!” “Do not mind them, Aline,” her mother whispered tenderly; but Aline heard the quiver in her mother’s voice, and it sent a fresh pang to her own heart. “Never mind, Max,” she said to the boy, who was kneeling down to fasten her skates. “Do not put them on, please. I shall not skate. I had rather go home.”