“Why! mine is a perfectly good hat. Don’t you think it’s rather striking?” asked Cynthia, with her face turned from Beth’s gaze.
“Goodness, yes! That’s the very trouble,” gasped Beth, looking at the green hat with the purple feather.
“And the girl who wore it really worked as a maid and waitress,” declared Cynthia, as though that settled the question of its suitability.
But Beth was puzzled. Cynthia spoke just as though she were playing a part and was proud of the fact that she had dressed for it. Yet the girl from Hudsonvale could not put her finger upon one word Cynthia had said or one thing that she had done which really bore out the suspicion that she was not exactly what she pretended to be—a fugitive from some institution where girls without home and friends were confined.
There was nothing vulgar or mean in the strange girl’s speech or actions. She was abrupt and rather impolite at times. But that abruptness seemed to spring from a frank character repressed, rather than from a lack of appreciation of proper behavior. Indeed, Beth fancied that Cynthia felt no social inferiority and was used to treating others as her equals in that respect. Or was it that she felt herself naturally superior to most of those whom she met?
A strange combination was Cynthia Fogg, that was sure.
Beth finished dressing first and went in search of Molly Granger. The jolly girl demanded first of all:
“Isn’t that the strangest girl you ever met, Beth Baldwin?”
Beth sighed. “I don’t know,” she said. “Either she does not know when she offends good taste or she does not care. She is an odd-acting girl for one in her position.”
“Yet,” said Molly, reflectively, “there is something taking about her.”