[ Miss Eldon's visit ]

KATE'S ORDEAL

CHAPTER I.

THE MESSAGE.

o you think Katie Haydon is pretty—I don't?" and the speaker glanced at her own bright curls as she spoke.

"Well, I don't know whether she is exactly pretty, but she always looks nice, and then she is so pleasant and merry, and——"

"And so vain and stuck-up," put in the first speaker again.

"Oh, how can you say so?" said another, a plain, quiet-looking girl, who had not spoken before. "Mother says she would make such a nice nurse-maid; so quiet and bright as she is, children would be sure to take to her."