BY
  MARY E. WILKINS FREEMAN
 
  THE COPY-CAT

    THE
        COPY-CAT

    THAT
     affair of Jim Simmons's
              cats never
            became known.

    Two little boys
           and a little girl
        can keep a secret
          -- that is,
           sometimes.

    The two little boys
        had the advantage
               of the little girl
         because they
            could talk
                   over the affair together,
           and the little girl,
         Lily Jennings,
           had no intimate girl friend
              to tempt her to confidence.

    She had
          only little Amelia Wheeler,
           commonly called
               by the pupils
                   of Madame's school
         "The Copy-Cat."

    Amelia was
           an odd little girl
          -- that is,
           everybody called her odd.

    She was
         that rather unusual creature,
           a child
               with a definite ideal;
        and that ideal
            was Lily Jennings.

    However,
           nobody knew that.

    If Amelia's mother,
           who was a woman
               of strong character,
         had suspected,
        she would have taken
            strenuous measures
              to prevent
                   such a peculiar state
                       of affairs;
        the more so
             because she herself
                did not in the least
                      approve of Lily Jennings.

    Mrs. Diantha Wheeler
         (Amelia's father had died
             when she was a baby)
          often remarked
               to her own mother,
             Mrs. Stark,
             and to her mother-in-law,
               Mrs. Samuel Wheeler,
             that she did not feel
                 that Mrs. Jennings
                    was bringing up Lily exactly
                           as she should.

    "That child
        thinks entirely
               too much of her looks,"
              said Mrs. Diantha.

    "When she walks past here
         she switches
               those ridiculous frilled frocks
                   of hers
         as if
             she were entering a ballroom,
           and she tosses
               her head and looks
                   about to see
             if anybody is watching her.

    If I
        were to see Amelia
              doing such things
         I should be
               very firm with her."

    "Lily Jennings
        is a very pretty child,"
              said Mother-in-law Wheeler,
           with an under-meaning,
         and Mrs. Diantha flushed.

    Amelia did not
           in the least
          resemble the Wheelers,
           who were a handsome set.

    She looked remarkably
          like her mother,
           who was a plain woman,
         only little Amelia
            did not
                  have a square chin.

    Her chin
        was pretty and round,
        with a little
           dimple in it.

    In fact,
           Amelia's chin
         was the prettiest
             feature she had.

    Her hair was phenomenally straight.

    It would not
         even yield to hot curling-irons,
           which her grandmother Wheeler
            had tried surreptitiously several times
             when there was
                   a little girls' party.

    "I never saw
           such hair as
         that poor child
            has in all my life,"
         she told the other grandmother,
           Mrs. Stark.

    "Have the Starks always
        had such very straight hair?"

    Mrs. Stark stiffened her chin.

    Her own hair
        was very straight.

    "I don't know,"
          said she,
               "that the Starks
                  have had any straighter hair
                       than other people.

    If Amelia
        does not
              have anything worse
                  to contend with
                       than straight hair
         I rather think
           she will get
               along in the world
             as well
               as most people."

    "It's thin,
           too,"
          said Grandmother Wheeler,
               with a sigh,
             "and it
                hasn't a mite of color.

    Oh,
           well,
         Amelia is a good child,
           and beauty isn't everything."

    Grandmother Wheeler said that
         as if beauty
            were a great deal,
           and Grandmother Stark
            arose and shook
                   out her black silk skirts.

    She had money,
           and loved
              to dress
                in rich black silks
                        and laces.

    "It is very little,