“I know well enough Chet was never like that,” declared Josephine, confidently.
They went in by the front gate and walked around the house, leaving the disappointed youngster wiping his eyes. They expected to find Lizzie Bean at the back.
In that they were not mistaken. At the well-curb was a lank, bony girl, who might have been Laura’s age, or perhaps a couple of years older. 38 She was dreadfully thin. As she hauled on the chain which brought the brimming bucket to the top of the well, she betrayed more red elbow and more white stockinged ankle-bone than any one person should display.
“My goodness, she’s thin!” whispered Jess.
“We are not looking for a Hebe to help us at the camp,” Laura returned in the same low tone.
Lizzie Bean turned to see who was approaching. Her face was as thin as the rest of her figure. Prominent cheek bones, a sharp, long nose, and a pointed chin do not make a beautiful countenance, to say the least.
Besides, the expression of her face was lachrymose in the extreme. It did seem, as Jess afterward said, that Lizzie must have lost all her relatives and friends very recently, and was mourning for them all!
“Goodness me!” she whispered to Laura. “No wonder they call her ‘Lonesome Liz.’ She’s so sad looking she’s positively funny.”