As the two girls went downstairs, Brenda politely urged Belle to go ahead of her. She, herself, lingered a moment to look over the balusters, and thus, when they reached the broad hall at the foot of the stairs, she was several steps behind her friend.
Belle, with a quick eye, before she reached the bottom of the stairs, noticed a little group near the fireplace,—an elderly woman with a shawl over her arm, who looked like a maid; Mrs. Barlow, holding the hand of a slight girl in black, and last but not least, a large Irish setter which lay at the young girl's feet. All this Belle had hardly time to notice when the young girl rushed forward and throwing her arm around her neck, cried,
"Oh, Cousin Brenda, I'm so glad to see you." Belle for a moment looked disconcerted, and Mrs. Barlow, without showing any surprise at Belle's presence, relieved the latter by saying:
"This isn't Brenda, Julia, but one of her friends."
Julia, still with her hand in Belle's, smiled pleasantly.
"I'm glad to see you," she said, and just at that moment Brenda came in sight.
Julia was hastening forward to greet her cousin as she had greeted her friend, but something in Brenda's face forbade her. Brenda could not, perhaps, have explained why she felt so annoyed at Julia's mistake. She was not unduly vain, yet it annoyed her that her cousin had mistaken Belle for her. For well as she liked Belle, she knew that all the other girls considered her not especially good-looking. Though she could not, probably would not, have put it into words, the thought flashed through her brain that Julia was stupid to have made such a mistake. The thought took form in a rather repelling glance as her eye met her cousin's.
"Come, Brenda, you should not make Julia go more than half-way to meet you," called her mother from her place near the fire.
"No'm," replied Brenda, hardly knowing what she said, for really she felt a little shy about the new cousin, who was more than a year her senior. "With her hand outstretched, she stepped toward Julia, moving with the dignity that her lengthened skirt demanded.
"Dear me! What can it be?" she thought, as she felt something hindering her progress. It could not be that the skirt was too long. She stooped a little to raise it from beneath her feet, and then, how mortifying! she felt a string snap. She clutched wildly at her skirt with both hands. But it was too late, and making the best of the situation, she stood before her cousin in her short ruffled petticoat, instead of her long, grown-up gown.