offered "She gave Aunt Margaret a great bunch, and those are part of them. I am quite sure she has more, and would spare some."
Sadie Reed laughed shortly. "You needn't trouble," she said, "I was fooled. I thought they were expensive quills. I wanted them for a twenty-dollar velvet toque to match my new suit. If they are picked off the ground, really, I couldn't use them."
"Only in spots!" said Elnora. "They don't just cover the earth. Phœbe Simms's peacocks are the only ones within miles of Onabasha, and they moult but once a year. If your hat only cost twenty dollars, it's hardly good enough for those quills. You see, the Almighty made and coloured those Himself; and He puts the same kind on Phoebe Simms's peacocks that He put on the head of the family in the forests of Ceylon, away back in the beginning. Any old manufactured quill from New York or Chicago will do for your little twenty-dollar hat. You ought to have something infinitely better than that to be worthy of quills that are made by the Creator."
How those girls did laugh! One of them walked by Elnora to the auditorium, sat with her during exercises, and tried to talk whenever she dared, to keep Elnora from seeing the curious and admiring looks bent upon her. For the brown-eyed boy whistled, and there was pantomime of all sorts going on behind Elnora's back that day. Happy with her books, no one knew how much she saw, and from her absorption in her studies it was evident she cared too little to notice. It soon developed
