wo girls. Mary Ann's dress was very much
overtrimmed, her hair was frizzed into a spiky bush across her forehead,
and her somewhat freckled face was composed into an expression of serene
self-complacency. She was the only girl in the village who was at a
boarding-school; not even Hunter's Marjory, with all her airs, could
boast this advantage, she thought; and Mary Ann felt her superiority,
and gloried in it.

Mrs. Smylie noted with great pride that the hand her daughter held out
to Marjory was white and delicate--in great contrast to Marjory's brown
one. "But then," she reflected, "the puir bairn hasna got her mither to
watch her like oor Mary Ann has. Bless me! how the lassie glowers! Mary
Ann has the biggest share o' manners onyways."

It must be confessed that Marjory was "glowering." She regarded the
overdressed girl with aversion, answered her mincingly-spoken "How do
you do, Marjory?" very curtly, and continued to "glower," as Mrs. Smylie
described it, without saying another word.

"Won't you come into the house?" asked Mary Ann, and Marjory went.

She did not care about these people; she had never liked Mary Ann, and
could hardly bear to look at her now, or listen to her affected way of
talking. Still, she did not wish to be rude, so she followed Mary Ann
through the shop into the house, and was ushered into the sitting-room,
or parlour as it was called. The room was like Mary Ann's dress--full of
all sorts of bright colours and gaudy ornaments of poor quality.

There was one thing about Mary Ann which interested Marjory profoundly,
and that was her school experience. She felt that she would like to
question the girl about it, and yet was too proud to betray her
curiosity by bringing up the subject. Mary Ann, however, saved her the
trouble, for as soon as they were seated she began at once,--

"Why don't your uncle send you to school? Any one would think a great
girl like you ought to be sent to school. Why don't he send you?"

"Uncle doesn't wish me to go to school."

"Maybe he don't want to pay the fees," said Mary Ann.

Marjory said nothing.

"I learn French and German and music. I'm getting on fine with the
piano, and papa's going to buy me one of my own soon. You haven't got a
piano at Hunters' Brae, have you?"

"No," said Marjory shortly.

As a matter of fact there was a piano at Hunters' Brae, but it was kept
in the room that had been her mother's--a room that Marjory was not
allowed to ente