Lucy Berry's cheeks had been growing redder all through this scene, and now she turned upon Ada.
"She has a right to expect a great deal else," she returned excitedly, "but we've all been so hateful to her it's a wonder if she did. I wish I'd been kind to her before," she continued, her heart aching with the remembrance of the little lonely figure, and the big, hollow dinner-pail; "but I'm going to be her friend now, always, and you can be friends with us or not, just as you please;" and turning from the astonished Ada, Lucy Berry marched out of the schoolroom, fearing she should cry if she stayed, and sure that if there were any more beauties for her in the white box, her stanch friend, Frank Morse, would take care of them for her. Among the valentines she had already received was one addressed in his handwriting, and she looked at it as she walked along.
"It's the handsomest one I ever saw," she thought, lifting a rose here, and a group of cupids there, and reading the tender messages thus disclosed.
"I know what I'll do!" she exclaimed aloud. "I'll send it to Alma. Frank won't care," and covering the valentine in its box, she started to run, and turned a corner at such speed that she bumped into somebody coming at equal or greater speed, from the opposite direction. A passer-by just then would have been amused to see a boy and girl sitting flat on the sidewalk, rubbing their heads and staring at one another.
"Lucy Berry!"
"Frank Morse!"
"What's up?"
"Nothing. Something's down, and it's me."