"How do I know?" he enquired, rather indignantly, as though his sister had suspected him of secret knowledge of a crime. "I don't know any that's good lookin'," he added conclusively.
"Our Mary's awful pretty," suggested Christina pensively.
"Is she?" Sandy lay back in gorged content, and gazed up into the swaying green sea of the Maples. "I bet she knows it mighty well, then, let me tell you."
"I heard the Grant Girls and Mrs. Johnnie Dunn talkin', when I was away back by Grants' fence. They were talkin' about our girls, and Flora Grant said they were all,—said that Ellen and Mary were so good-lookin' that she watched them in church."
Sandy was showing signs of interest. He sat up. "What did they say about you?"
"Flora said I was a 'nice bit lassock,' but Mrs. Johnnie said,"—Christina could not bring herself to tell the humiliating truth—"she said I wasn't like the rest," she finished falteringly.
Sandy was beginning to wake up to the fact that Christina was in distress. Why any human being should worry about her appearance was something far beyond Sandy's comprehension, but he could not endure to see Christina worried. He caught up a stone and shied it across the sunny tangle at an old Crow perched on a tall black stump.
"Sugar," he declared. "Who cares for what Mrs. Johnnie says? She looks like our old brindle cow herself. Duke Simms says she's got chilblains on her temper."
His stormy attack upon the enemy proved very bracing to the one who had been so recently overthrown by her.
"But the Grant girls said so too," she added, searching for more comfort.