Berry Vining, the little village beauty, singing so blithely at her window of a love that as yet she had never known, was at the crisis of her fate, for at that very moment down the village street swept a gay cavalcade of riders, and as the sweet voice floated out upon the air, their glances turned upward in irrepressible admiration. Berry longed for higher things, and despised the humdrum lives of her sisters with the humble mates they had chosen.
"I believe I am as pretty as any of those proud, rich girls," she murmured, glancing into the little cracked mirror over the mantel, and sighing: "Why should I have so different a fate? Why did my poor father have to drive an humble delivery wagon all his life and die of a malarial fever at last; and why does poor mamma have to work as a tailoress, while Rosalind Montague has a millionaire for a father, and a fine lady mother flaunting in silks and diamonds?
