Then something made Nancy turn. A little figure was mincing along the avenue; its shoes had very high heels, its stockings were pink, and its dress a bright green. A showy hat with many-colored flowers crowned its head, and as the carriage passed it waved a lace handkerchief, thus setting her many bangles tinkling.
“That was Patricia Lavine,” said Nancy; “Mollie Merton said she saw her just a few days ago.”
“O dear!” said Dorothy, “and it's not nice to say that when Patricia has just come back here to live, but truly she wasn't pleasant.”
“I don't wonder you said, ‘O dear,’ for wherever she was, she made somebody uncomfortable,” Nancy said, which was indeed true.
Patricia was not wholly at fault. She dearly loved anything that was showy, and her mother, who was a very ignorant woman, was quite as fond of display.
She had never taught her little daughter to be kind or courteous, but instead had laughed at her pert ways, and thought them amusing.
Patricia hastened along the avenue as fast as her little steeple heels would permit, and when she saw Flossie and Reginald, she rushed toward them, assuring them that she never had been so glad to see any one before.
Neither Flossie nor Reginald could say that they were quite as pleased, but Patricia did not wait for them to speak.
“We've been living in N' York,” she said, “but we're going to live here now, an' we've got a el'gant house right next the schoolhouse. Ma says it's one of the finest houses in Merrivale, an' I guess—”
“If it's next to the schoolhouse it's the one where our cook's brother lives,” remarked Reginald. “He lives on the first floor, and the man that drives the water-cart lives just over him.”