"Mamma has ordered her some dresses from Hollander's," observed Georgie; "and that was a real pretty hat that came home last night."
"I don't care. They won't look like anything when she puts them on."
"Gertrude Gray, I think it's real mean to talk so about your own cousin," cried Marian, who, with the instinct of a true "little pitcher," had heard every word. "It isn't Cannie's fault that she has always lived on a farm. She didn't have anywhere else to live. Very likely she would have preferred Paris," with fine scorn, "or to go to boarding-school in Dresden, as you and Georgie did, if anybody had given her the choice. She's real nice, I think, and now that her hair is put up, she's pretty too,—a great deal prettier than some of the girls you like. I'm going down now to sit with her. You and Georgie don't treat her kindly a bit. You leave her all alone, and very likely she's homesick at this moment; but I shall be nice to her, whatever you do."
