"I didn't mean to say a word against her, I'm sure. I like her first-rate."
"Well, I shouldn't think you liked me first-rate, if I heard that you called me unfeeling and proud."
Sallie drew her arm from her companion, and walked on by herself in a dignified manner. Before long, Matilda reached her own home, and, with a pleasant good-bye, ran inside the gate.
When Sallie was left to her own reflections, her face grew more flushed and serious than ever. She was very angry with her cousin Cynthia, for criticizing her dress. She was angry with her mother, for obliging her to wear a gown that looked as if it came out of the ark. She was angry with Matilda for repeating her cousin's ill-natured remarks; and she was angry with herself for listening to them. It was only when she thought of Hatty, sweet Hatty Maynard, with her gay tone and pleasant, placid smile, that her forehead relaxed from the deep frown which had gathered upon it.
"I wonder," she said to herself, "why Hatty is so much happier than anybody else I know. She's real poor, and has to wait on that cross old uncle, and her deformed sister; she dresses old-fashioned, too; only she never seems to care. When she has on anything odd, she just laughs the more, and says, gayly,—
"'You know my dressmaker doesn't visit the city often.' Well, I suppose it's her way, and I wish 'twas my way, too."
CHAPTER II.
SALLIE'S HOME TROUBLES.