y be nothing as you all do. I really
believe Olive thinks we do not want her, because, for so long time
lately, we have just let her alone, and she always goes----"

"None of us ever receive a special invitation to join this circle,"
interrupted Kat, briskly. "Why should she?"

"I don't know, but she is so strange," answered Bea, rather helplessly,
but not giving up. "And because she is so, we have sort a' stayed
together and let her alone. When we used to try to get her to go with
us, I think she always refused, because she thought she was ugly, and we
did not try long enough to overcome this feeling, and now she imagines
we don't want her."

"Stuff," persisted Kat, "I wouldn't act that way if I was as ugly as a
wilted pumpkin and cross-eyed. What's the use?"

"None," promptly responded Beatrice. "But if you were like her, very
likely you'd feel as she does."

"Catch me," laughed Kat, jumping up and making a scornful spin on her
heel. "What do you say, Kittie?"

"I had my say a minute ago," answered Kittie, who was evidently thinking
out something over the flames.

"I wonder what makes her hate Uncle Ridley so?" was Ernestine's query,
as she turned from the glass, having satisfied herself that Kittie was
certainly wrong about Olive's hair.

"I never could imagine," answered Bea, with evident curiosity.

"She won't call him, uncle, and the dress he sent her is in mama's room,
and Olive says, she'll never wear it."

"May be she would give it me," suggested Kat. "I think hers was prettier
than any of the rest."

"Well, I don't," said Ernestine, taking exceptions to this remark also.
"Why hers is black?"

"I'm perfectly aware of that, also, that yours is purple, Bea's brown,
mine and Kittie's grey; tell me something I don't know," said Kat
flippantly. "I wish ours were black, it's so stylish."

That black was more stylish than purple, was an idea quite beneath
Ernestine's notice, so she went back to her former query.

"I would like to know, anyhow, what makes Olive dislike him so." For
Mrs. Dering had not thought it necessary that the girls should know of
their father's final appeal, and Mr. Congreve's reception thereof; so
they were all equally curious, and so, nobody being able to give an
answer, Kat ventured an assertion.

"She hates him just because it's a part of her religion to hate
everybody, and, to go around with her fist doubled up ready to fight. I
believe she'd hate us with a little trying."