Christina,
who did not believe in letting her good deeds waste their sweetness on
the desert air of a berry patch. "I had my pail heaped a dozen times,
and shook down too, and Gavin Hume spilled all his on an ant hill, and
he said Old Skinflint would thrash him, so I gave him mine."

"You did!" Sandy grunted. Christina was always doing things like that.
"Well you're a silly. Why can't he keep his berries when he picks 'em?
Never mind," he added, having reached the pie, and feeling generous,
"I'll give you half the money, and we'll get some gum and a box o'
paints."

Christina did not dare confess how she had planned to spend the money,
and was not much comforted by his offer. Even paints would not
permanently improve one's complexion.

"Sandy," she said at last, with much hesitation, "do you,--who do you
think is the prettiest girl in our school?"

Sandy stared. He belonged to the Stone Age as yet, and knew nothing of
the decorative, and less about girls. He had no notion that they were
classified at all, except as little girls and big girls.

"How do _I_ know?" he enquired, rather indignantly, as though his
sister had suspected him of secret knowledge of a crime. "I don't know
any that's good lookin'," he added conclusively.

"Our Mary's awful pretty," suggested Christina pensively.

"Is she?" Sandy lay back in gorged content, and gazed up into the
swaying green sea of the Maples. "I bet she knows it mighty well,
then, let me tell you."

"I heard the Grant Girls and Mrs. Johnnie Dunn talkin', when I was away
back by Grants' fence. They were talkin' about our girls, and Flora
Grant said they were all,--said that Ellen and Mary were so
good-lookin' that she watched them in church."

Sandy was showing signs of interest. He sat up. "What did they say
about you?"

"Flora said I was a 'nice bit lassock,' but Mrs. Johnnie
said,"--Christina could not bring herself to tell the humiliating
truth--"she said I wasn't like the rest," she finished falteringly.

Sandy was beginning to wake up to the fact that Christina was in
distress. Why any human being should worry about her appearance was
something far beyond Sandy's comprehension, but he could not endure to
see Christina worried. He caught up a stone and shied it across the
sunny tangle at an old Crow perched on a tall black stump.

"Sugar," he declared. "Who cares for what Mrs. Johnnie says? She
looks like our old brindle cow herself. Duke Simms