"Oh, I didn't mind; at least, I knew I did not mean to spoil the feather; but I kicked it, you know."
"Do let me give it to her, Mama," Lena pleaded.
"I don't want it, Lena, I don't want it; you and Milly will have hats alike. I mustn't speak of the white one. Milly and I decided we never would; and Bessie said she would think me very mean if I did, and I won't."
"How good you are all to me!" said Lena, giving her little sister a kiss.
"That's because you are so much nicer now than you used to be—you are not always"—— Here Lucy stopped, abashed at Milly's indignant exclamation.
"Always what?" asked Lena after a moment's pause.
"Always wanting to be first, and going on about being the eldest. I love you ever so much more now since you have been to Sidcombe;" and the child looked round at them all, as much as to say, "There now, I have spoken out what I really think."
"Dear Lena, I should rather have had that testimony to your character than all the promises of last summer, and I am sure Mama agrees with me," said Aunt Mary.
Mama's answer was a loving kiss as she placed the hat on Lena's head. Then doing the same to Milly, said, "Now run down together, and show them to Papa, and ask what he thinks about them; and then put them away in your own room until Christmas morning, that day of joy, peace, and good-will towards man."
As the two girls left the room together, Miss Somerville said to her sister, "They are very fond of each other."