"Well, perhaps your mother came from Ireland, for you have quite an Irish face: only you're so thin, and you look so cross—are you?"
"Yes. I am always cross. I hate everybody."
"Good heavens! What a little savage! but you shouldn't. It makes one so ugly to hate."
"Does it?" Eagerly. "Do you think if I was never cross I'd get beautiful?"
"You are much more likely to," said the other encouragingly, thinking in the meantime that nothing could ever make harmonious and beautiful that small tormented face.
"Is that why you are so beautiful?" was the next question.
The beauty smiled: a little complacently perhaps.
"I expect so. I am never cross and never unhappy, and I never mean to let anyone make me so." She opened her brown holland sunshade lined with sea-green silk and got up to go.
"Now be sure and remember that," she said pleasantly. "Never cry, never be unhappy, never hate anyone, and never be cross and—you'll see how beautiful you'll become."
"Oh, I will, I will," cried Poppy ardently.