“Goose!” said Patty. “Oh, I’m sorry for her, of course; but as an American girl, she ought to have more spunk.”
“Southern girls don’t have spunk, Patty,” said her father, with a merry twinkle in his eye.
“Don’t they! Well, I guess I ought to know! I’m a Southern girl, myself. At least, I was until I was fourteen.”
“Perhaps you’ve achieved your spunk since you came North, then,” said Hepworth; “for I agree with your father, Southern girls do not have much energy of character. At least, Miss Farley hasn’t. She’s about nineteen or twenty, but she’s as childish as a girl of fourteen,—except in her work; there she excels any one of her age I’ve ever known.”
“Can nothing be done in the matter?” asked Nan.
“I don’t know. I’m told they’re very proud people, and would not accept charity. Of course she never can earn anything by her work if she stays at home; and as she can’t get away, it seems to be a deadlock.”
“I’d like to help her,” said Patty, slowly. “I do think she ought to have ingenuity enough to help herself, but if she hasn’t, I’d like to help her.”
“How can you?” asked Nan.
“I don’t know. But the way to find out how to do things is to do them.”
“Oh, dear,” moaned Mr. Hepworth, in mock despair. “I said I feared you were clever. Don’t say those things, Patty, you’ll ruin your reputation as a beauty.”