Maggie looked up and met Aneta’s glance. Was Aneta thinking of the Martyns of The Meadows? The color rushed all over Maggie’s face. She clenched her hands. “I hate the horrid, horrid things!” she said. “I won’t wear one of them.”
“Oh, come, dear,” said Mrs. Ward kindly; “your stepfather means very well indeed by you. He has doubtless had very little to do with dressing a lady before.—We can slightly alter those dresses, can we not, Miss Johnson?”
Miss Johnson had now placed all the hideous garments back in the box. She said with a smile, “The sage-green dress can be made quite useful; but I rather despair of the magenta.”
“Well,” said Mrs. Ward, “it was meant kindly. Perhaps, Maggie, if you gave me your stepfather’s address I might write to him and tell him the sort of things that I like my girls to wear.”
Maggie turned crimson. That would indeed be the final straw. She murmured something which Mrs. Ward did not choose to hear. To her great relief, the hour for bed had arrived, and all the girls went to their rooms.
Miss Johnson came down again after she had deposited the hideous dresses in Maggie’s wardrobe. “I quite pity poor little Maggie,” she said. “What frightful taste! There is really nothing in the whole of that box that she can possibly wear.”
“I must write to Mr. Martyn,” said Mrs. Ward. “Didn’t somebody tell me that he was a country gentleman—a relation of the Martyns of The Meadows? Such particularly nice people!”
“I know nothing about that,” said Miss Johnson. “I only know that the contents of the box are simply atrocious.” 136
“Well,” said Mrs. Ward, “we won’t say anything to annoy Maggie to-night; I could see that the poor dear child was greatly mortified. I only regret that I had the box opened here; but you know it is one of our customs to share all our pleasures. Poor little Maggie! The thing was most unlucky.”
Up in her room, Maggie had locked her door. She would unlock it again, but she must read that frightful letter without any chance of being disturbed. She opened it, tore it from its envelope, and read the contents: