Some letters came this afternoon,—a whole handful for Eugenia, written on handsome linen paper and sealed with pretty monogram seals. I had a letter, too. The first one since I have been here. It was from Davy, and printed in big tipsy letters that straggled all over the page. There were only a few lines, but I knew how long the little fellow must have worked over them, gripping the pencil tight in his hard little fist. I was so proud of it, Davy's first letter, that I passed it around for the girls to see. Lloyd and Joyce were interested and amused, and laughed as I had done over the dear crooked letters; but Eugenia was in one of her high and mighty moods, and she only lifted those black eyebrows in that indifferent way of hers, and tossed it back.
"What awfully queer letter-paper," she said. "Ruled! I didn't know that anybody ever wrote on ruled paper nowadays, but servants. Eliot always does, but it's so common to use it, you know."
I could hardly keep the tears back to have her make fun of poor little Davy's letter. For a few minutes I was so homesick that I wished I was back with Davy in the plain old farmhouse, where it doesn't make any difference whether there are lines on your paper or not, or any such silly things as that. Everybody uses ruled paper there, for that matter, because Squire Jaynes doesn't sell any other kind. What difference does it make, anyhow, I should like to know?
I went off to my own room with the letter, and Joyce followed me and found me crying. She made a face out of the window at Eugenia, and told me never to mind what anybody said. There was a big wide world outside of Eugenia's set with its silly airs and graces, and sensible people made fun of them. Then she offered to illustrate my answer to Davy's letter, and drew a picture of Calico and Lad at the top of the page, and Lloyd's parrot at the bottom. That reminded me to tell him some funny things the parrot had said, and in writing them I got over my homesickness.
Eugenia has a crest on her paper, because some one of her great-great-great-grandfathers, almost back to Noah, was a lord. But it doesn't make her remember to act like a lady. She ought to be made to learn the lines that were in my copy-book once:
| "Kind hearts are more than coronets, |
| And simple faith than Norman blood." |