THE APPLE TREE GIRL
custom. Probably the minstrels started it. It's the same as if every gentleman still had to go around in armor, and every old woman was a witch. Why, the way the books have it, Margaret's the only girl in Penfield who could ever be a heroine, and I don't believe there's a girl in town—no, not one!—who wouldn't make a better heroine than she!"
Which was as far as she got just then; but after that, whenever Charlotte read a short story or a book and came to the author's description of his heroine, and read something like this: "I would like to describe the beauty of Lois Mallory, but words fail me," or "Her features were crisply and delicately chiseled, as though by a master sculptor," or "She had only to enter a room to eclipse everybody there"—whenever Charlotte came to a passage like that, her beaky little nose curled in a most refreshing manner and she cried to herself, "Oh, fudge!" As you will understand, "Oh,
31
