"Why, no."
"One of the greatest favorites I know is a middle-aged lady,—a maiden lady,—not only with a plain face, but with a defect in the upper lip. She is loved; her company is sought. She is not rich; she has only an ordinary position—she is a saleswoman down town. She is not educated. Some of your school girl friends are very fond of her. She is attractive, and you look at her and wonder why; but you hear her speak, and you wonder no longer. She always has something bright to say. I do not know of another attraction that she has, beside her willingness to help everybody."
"And she's neither young nor pretty."
"No; she is what you girls call an old maid."
Marjorie was mending the elbow of her brown school dress; she wore that dress in all weathers every day, and on rainy Sundays. Some of the girls said that she did not care enough about dress. She forgot that she wore the same dress every day until one of the dressy little things in the primary class reminded her of the fact. And then she laughed.
"In the Bible stories Sarah and Rebekah and Esther and Abigail are spoken of as being beautiful."
"Does their fortune depend upon their beautiful faces?"
"Didn't Esther's?"
"She was chosen by the king on account of her beauty, but I think it was God who brought her into favor and tender love, as he did Daniel; and rather more depended upon her praying and fasting than upon her beautiful face."
"Then you mean that beauty goes for a great deal with the world and not with God?"