But Charlotte’s face half-belied her words. She was already laughing a little, though she reddened too, slightly, as she felt her brother’s soft blue eyes fixed upon her.
“I shouldn’t say it, I know,” she said, shaking back the thick dark hair that she still wore loose on her shoulders. “But you might understand. We are all very comfortable at Miss Lloyd’s, and I don’t want any one to come and spoil it—an outsider, as it were, for the rest of us have been there so long, and she is too old to be in any but the highest class.”
“Unless she’s very stupid for her age,” suggested Jerry. “Very likely she is—perhaps that’s the thing she hasn’t got, Charlotte. Cleverness, I mean. And I’m sure,” he went on with brotherly frankness, “you wouldn’t give up being clever for the sake of being pretty—now, would you?”
Charlotte laughed.
“Surely I’m not so ugly as all that,” she said. “Do you really think I am, Jerry?”
She lifted her face and looked across the table at the boy. Ugly she certainly was not, but though her features were good, her complexion was some degrees browner than “by rights” it should have been to match the very blue eyes common to all the Waldrons. And her hair was short as well as thick and curly, and in consequence rather unmanageable. But it was a bright and kindly and pleasant face, and Jerry felt vaguely as he looked at it that there were things, even in faces, better than strict beauty.
“I don’t know,” he said bluntly. “Your face is you, and so I like it. I don’t want it changed, except that in a bit, I suppose, you’ll have to do your hair up somehow.”
“Yes, I suppose I shall,” replied Charlotte, glancing sideways and somewhat ruefully at the dark brown curly locks in question; “but how I shall do it, I’m sure I can’t tell. I wonder if I should begin to try soon. I think I’ll ask mamma. I wonder how she did hers when she was my age—but hers could never have been difficult to do. It’s so beautifully soft and never gets in a mess.”
“No—I couldn’t fancy anything to do with mamma in a mess,” said Jerry. “You’ll never be anything like as pretty as her, Charlotte.”
“You don’t suppose I ever thought I should, you stupid boy,” retorted his sister indignantly. “I notice that people generally like to make out that children never are as pretty or as good or as something as their parents, and very often I dare say it’s rubbish. But in our case any one with half an eye can see how lovely mamma is. I doubt if even Marion will be anything to compare with her, though she is a very pretty little girl.”