“I’ve seen women like that,” Mrs. Baron continued, “women who like to make difficulties; who go into hysterics over little things. It’s always just a lack of sense—that’s all it is.”
“Yes—or temperament. I expect there’s a good deal in what people call temperament. I didn’t know children had it so much, but Bonnie May isn’t like other children. Maybe she has a good deal of temperament.”
They examined the dress together without any very definite purpose.
“She ought to know she can’t go on wearing that silly thing she came here in,” was Mrs. Baron’s next comment.
“She must realize that,” agreed Flora. She added casually: “I think something soft, with a little color in it, might please her. You might let me try next time.”
This was the wrong note again. “As if I weren’t capable of making a child’s dress!” protested Mrs. Baron.
“I only meant it would be fair to divide the work,” Flora explained gently. “I didn’t mean I could do it better.”
As if her anger had been effectually checked in that direction, Mrs. Baron hit upon another possible grievance. “And she’s going to Sunday-school to-day,” she affirmed in a tone which seemed to take account of difficulties. “We’ve done our best to dress her decently. And I don’t intend to humor a little pagan as long as she’s in a Christian household.”
“But in that—that peculiar dress?” faltered Flora. She had a vision of Bonnie May in her fantastic old frock associating with the prim children of poverty who were now the mainstay of the Sunday-school.
“She may walk with Mrs. Shepard. People may believe she belongs to her, if they want to.”