"Pshaw! aunt might just as well have saved her manners. Dainty can not possibly go. She hasn't a decent thing to wear at such a grand place as Ellsworth."
"She would look pretty in a rag, and we both know it. Dainty by name, and dainty by nature," Ela returned, gloomily, yielding reluctant homage to a fair young cousin of whose charms both were profoundly jealous.
Olive and Ela, who were school-teachers in the southern city, Richmond, Virginia, boarded with a widowed aunt who took this means of supporting herself and her only child Dainty, who had but just graduated at a public school, and hoped to become a teacher herself next year. They were poor, but Dainty, with her fair face and gay good-nature, was like an embodied ray of sunshine.
It had been very kind in the rich Mrs. Ellsworth to invite her three nieces to her grand West Virginia home, and to offer to pay the expenses of their journey. But for her generosity Dainty could not have gone; but now, at her mother's wish, she wrote, gratefully accepting the invitation.
"How thankful I am!" cried the mother, joyfully. "It's just what Dainty needs, this trip to the mountains! She looks so pale and wan since she graduated."
"So you really mean to let her go?" Ela exclaimed, with pretended surprise, while Olive added, spitefully:
"We thought Aunt Judith might be ashamed of her shabby clothes. She hasn't anything to wear, has she, but her last summer's gowns and the cheap white muslin she had for her graduation?"
"Mrs. Ellsworth knows we are poor, and that Dainty must dress plainly. I dare say she is too kind-hearted to be ashamed of her dead half-brother's only child," Mrs. Chase returned, spiritedly; while the thought would intrude, that if only Olive and Ela would pay their neglected board bills she might afford Dainty a new summer gown and dress.
She summoned up courage to hint this fact to them next day, but they met the timid appeal with angry reproaches.
"Don't think we are going to cheat you of our board bill because we can not spare the money till school begins next fall!" cried Olive, sharply; while Ela chimed in scornfully: