"I'm sorry," she said briefly.
"I'm sure you are, now you understand why it wasn't kind."
"I wish she knew I meant to be nice."
"Would you like to have me tell her? I think she'll understand there are some things you haven't learned for you haven't a mother to teach you."
"Uncle Dan says maybe I'll have to live with the old ladies all the time, so they might as well know I wasn't trying to be mean," she whispered resignedly.
"I'll tell Miss Maria, then, and perhaps you and she will be better friends from now on because she'll know you want to please her. And now, I came over to tell you that the U.S.C. is going into New York to-day to see something of the Botanical Garden and the Arboretum. I'm going with them and they'd be glad to have you go, too."
"They won't be very glad, but I'd like to go," responded the girl, her face lighted with the nearest approach to affection Mrs. Smith ever had seen upon it.