you, and likes to tell stories and do pleasant things, only she thinks you don’t care for her quiet sort of fun. I do, anyway, and I think she’s the kindest, best old lady that ever lived, and I love her dearly!”
“I didn’t say she wasn’t, only old people are sort of tedious and fussy, so I keep out of their way,” said Fanny.
“Well, you ought not to, and you miss lots of pleasant times. My mother says we ought to be kind and patient and respectful to all old folks just because they are old, and I always mean to be.”
“Your mother’s everlastingly preaching,” muttered Fan, nettled by the consciousness of her own shortcomings with regard to grandma.
“She don’t preach!” cried Polly, firing up like a flash; “she only explains things to us, and helps us be good, and never scolds, and I’d rather have her than any other mother in the world, though she don’t wear velvet cloaks and splendid bonnets,—so now!”
“Go it, Polly!” called Tom, who was gracefully hanging head downward from the bar put up for his special benefit.
“Polly’s angry! Polly’s angry!” sung Maud, skipping rope round the room.
“If Mr. Sydney could see you now he wouldn’t think you such an angel any more,” added Fanny, tossing a bean-bag and her head at the same time.
Polly was angry, her face was very red, her eyes very bright, and her lips twitched, but she held her tongue and began to swing as hard as she could, fearing to say something she would be sorry for afterwards. For a few minutes no one spoke, Tom whistled and Maud hummed, but Fan and Polly were each soberly thinking of something, for they had reached an age when children, girls especially, begin to observe, contrast, and speculate upon the words, acts, manners, and looks of those about them. A good deal of thinking goes on in the heads of these shrewd little folks, and the elder should mind their ways, for they get criticized pretty sharply and imitated very closely.
Two little things had happened that day, and the influence of a few words, a careless action, was still working in the active minds of the girls.
Mr. Sydney had called, and while Fanny was talking with him she saw his eye rest on Polly, who sat apart watching the faces round her with the modest, intelligent look which many found so attractive. At that minute Madam Shaw came in, and stopped to speak to the little girl. Polly rose at once, and remained standing till the old lady passed on.
“Are you laughing at Polly’s prim ways?” Fanny had asked, as she saw Mr. Sydney smile.
“No, I am admiring Miss Polly’s fine manners,” he answered in a grave, respectful tone, which had impressed Fanny very much, for Mr. Sydney was considered by all the girls as a model of good breeding, and that indescribable something which they called “elegance”.
Fanny wished she had done that little thing, and won that approving look, for she valued the young man’s good opinion because it was so hard to win, by her set at least. So when Polly talked about old people, it recalled this scene and made Fan cross.
Polly was remembering how, when Mrs. Shaw came home that day in her fine visiting costume, and Maud ran to welcome her with unusual affection, she gathered up her lustrous silk and pushed the little girl away, saying impatiently, “Don’t touch me, child, your hands are dirty.” Then the thought had come to Polly that the velvet cloak didn’t cover a right motherly heart, that the fretful face under the nodding purple plumes was not a tender motherly face, and that the hands in the delicate primrose gloves had put away something very sweet and precious. The thought of another woman, whose dress never was