“Some class to you,” said the slangy Marcus. “Cricky! you’re the niftiest looking girl in the town—isn’t she, Pop?”
“She’s what her mother was over again,” said Mr. Baldwin, proudly, lowering his paper to “peck” at his pretty daughter’s cheek.
“Oh, Mamma! I don’t see why you didn’t have me a dark and delirious beauty,” groaned Ella, “instead of a washed-out, flaxen-haired, inconsequential looking little dowdy! I hate to go anywhere with our Beth; she makes me look like just nothing.”
The family laughed at the flyaway’s plaint, and Ella added:
“Anyway, I hope Beth will get married long before I get any beaux. I know I couldn’t keep ’em a minute if they came here and saw Beth.”
“Mercy, Ella!” gasped her mother. “What are you talking about—a child of eleven?”
Mr. Baldwin laughed heartily. He usually did at his flaxen-haired daughter’s nonsense. But Ella added:
“I don’t care, Mamma. It should be against the law for one sister to be so much prettier than the others. Poor little Prissy and me—why, we haven’t any chance at all!”
“‘Handsome is as handsome does,’ daughter,” quoted Mrs. Baldwin, contemplating her eldest child with her head on one side.
