"Well, that's what the Grimes and the Dwyers and all them calls me, anyhow," she argued, with a perfectly placid countenance.
"What does your father call you?" cousin Bessie asked.
"Sometimes he says 'little 'un,' and more times it's 'girly.' I ain't particular about names, ma'am, suit yourself," she said, without a change of expression, which was one of stolid earnestness.
"Well, then, we'll call you 'Girly' for the time being," cousin Bessie interposed, smiling and directing a glance of sly amusement at me.
"I hope you will be a very good little girl while you are in my house and we shall all be very good to you," Cousin Bessie began in a premonitory tone. "You must give up your old friends now and listen to us instead and—" here she paused, as if the next sacrifice had to be delicately proposed. "I don't like to see those ear-rings nor that ring with you, they are not becoming to a poor little girl."
Up went the two small hands to the ear-rings, which were hurriedly dragged out, she pulled the tight brass ring from her finger, revealing a dark blue circle where it had lain, and gathering them together in her little palm she looked us straight in the face and said with great earnestness
"D'ye suppose I care a continental for finery?" Then curling her red lips as if she had discovered that we so misjudged her, she shook her bushy head sideways with an emphatic gesture and said with a fiery indignation, which amused us intensely
"Not I! I hate it! I wore it for spite. I'll give this to either of you ladies now, and I'll never ask to lay eyes on it again."
Cousin Bessie took them from her saying,
"You look better without them, Girly," then changing her tone to one of gentle, solicitous enquiry, she asked the pert little stranger,