“Are—are you?” asked Beth, somewhat timidly.
“Am I what, my dear?” returned Molly.
“From a rich family?”
“Goodness, no! My aunts send me to Rivercliff. I’m a poor, lone orphan. My poor, dear mother must have taken one look at me, have seen what an awful, ugly little sprite I was, and thankfully ceased to live. My father was a missionary and died of fever in Canton. There you have my history, saving that seven aunts—all my father’s sisters (do you wonder he went missionarying?)—took upon themselves the task of bringing up and educating ‘poor lil’ Molly.’ If I hadn’t a well developed sense of the ridiculous, it would have killed me long ago.”
Molly rattled on so recklessly that Beth was more than a little startled at first. Then it began to impress the girl from Hudsonvale that here was a person who had really never had a mother or a father, and had never learned the actual need of parents. Therefore, she could talk so indifferently about them.
Another thought was, however, buzzing in Beth’s brain.
“What do you suppose these wealthy girls at Rivercliff will say to my dresses?” she asked. “I’ve only one better than this—and that’s for evening wear.”
“Goodness! How long is a string?” demanded the other girl.
“What?”
“How long is a string?” repeated Molly, laughing. “You might as well ask me that as to ask me how Maude Grimshaw and that tribe will look on you and your clothes. And I guess there’s no answer to that old wheeze.”