And Norman Wylde, who had a noble, chivalrous nature, could not help taking Pansy’s part when he saw how the boarders tried to put her down.
“Poor little thing! It’s a shame, for she is as sweet and pretty as a wild rose, and they ought to be friendly with her and help to brighten her hard lot,” he thought, with indignation.
CHAPTER II.
LOVE ALL HIS OWN.
The boarders had organized a fishing party, and everybody had gone, even Mr. Wylde, so it was very quiet at the farmhouse. Aunt Robbins and her servants were busy making preserves, and Uncle Robbins was in the meadow, hauling and stacking the wheat he had cut a few days before. Pansy had helped to peel apples for the preserves until her back ached and her hands smarted, so at last Aunt Robbins sent her out to rest.
“I shan’t need you any more to-day, so you had better go and take a nap in the hammock before that stuck-up Jule Ives comes to turn you out of it,” said the good woman.
Pansy went out, but she took off her calico dress and gingham apron first, and donned her prettiest dress, an organdie lawn with a white ground sprigged with blue flowers. A pretty bow of blue ribbon fastened the white lace at her throat, and another one tied back the mass of rippling dark hair from the white temples, leaving just a few bewitching love locks to curl over the white brow. Thus attired, she looked exquisitely fair, cool, and charming, and she knew well that when the boarders returned, tired and hot from the day’s amusements, they would envy her sweet, comfortable appearance.
She was not disappointed, for by and by, when they came trooping through the big white gate close by her, every one stopped and stared, and Miss Ives exclaimed, in a loud, sarcastic voice:
“Good gracious, is it Sunday?”
“Why, no, of course not, Juliette,” said Chattie Norwood. “Why, what made you think of such a funny thing?”
“Why, Pansy Laurens has on her Sunday dress, that’s all,” with a loud laugh.