ion with which this chapter begins.

"I don't see anything amiss with it," said Nurse, who stood with her
head on one side, and the other bonnet perched on her hand. "They're as
alike as two pins," she added, twirling it round admiringly.

"They're both just as ugly as they can be," said Pennie mournfully; "but
mine's sure to look worse than Nancy's--it always does. And they never
_will_ stay on," she added in a still more dejected voice, "unless I
keep on catching at the strings in front with my chin."

"Oh, well, Miss Pennie," said Nurse, "your head will grow to it, and you
ought to be thankful to have such a nice warm bonnet. How would you
like to go about with just a shawl over your head, like them gypsies we
saw the other day?"

"_Very much indeed_," said Pennie, who had now taken off the bonnet and
was looking at it ruefully. "There was one gypsy who had a red
handkerchief, which looked much prettier than this ugly old thing."

"You oughtn't to mind how things look," returned Nurse. "You think too
much of outsides, Miss Pennie."

"But the outside of a bonnet is the only part that matters," replied
Pennie.

She was quite prepared to continue the subject, but this was not the
case with Nurse.

"I've no time for argufying, miss," she said as she put the bonnets
carefully back into their boxes. "I'm sure my mistress will like them
very much. They're just as she ordered them." And so the subject was
dismissed, and Pennie felt that she was again a victim.

For, as Nurse had said, Pennie _did_ care a great deal about outsides,
and she thought it hard sometimes that she and Nancy must always be
dressed alike, for the same things did not suit them at all. Probably
this very bonnet which was such a trial to Pennie would be a suitable
frame for Nancy's round rosy face, and look quite nice. It was
certainly hard. Pennie loved all beautiful things, from the flowers in
the garden and fields to the yellow curls on Cicely's ruffled head, and
it often troubled her to feel that with pretty things all round her she
did not look pretty herself. So the winter bonnet cast quite a gloom on
her for the moment, and although it may seem a small trial to sensible
people it was a large one to Pennie. How often she had sighed over the
straight little serge frocks which she and Nancy always wore, and
secretly longed for brighter colours and more flowing lines, and now
this ugly dark bonnet had come to make things worse.