the
details of life sprang from her long muddled years at St. Dreots, the
lack of a mother's guidance and education, the careless selfishness of
her father's disregard of her. She struggled, poor child, passionately
to improve herself. She sat for hours in her room working at her
clothes, trying to mend her stockings, the holes in her blouses, the
rip of the braid at the bottom of her skirt. She waited listening for
the cuckoo to call that she might be in exact time for luncheon or
dinner, and then, as she listened, some thought would occur to her,
and, although she did not dream, her definite tracking of her idea
would lead her to forget all time. Soon there would be Martha's knock
on the door and her surly ill-tempered voice:

"Quarter of an hour they've been sitting at luncheon, Miss."

And her clothes! The aunts had said that she must buy what was
necessary, and she had gone with Aunt Elizabeth to choose all the right
things. They had, between them, bought all the wrong ones. Maggie had
no idea of whether or no something suited her; a dress, a hat that
would look charming upon any one else looked terrible upon her; she did
not know what was the matter, but nothing became her!

Her new friend, Caroline Smith, laughing and chattering, tried to help
her. Caroline had very definite ideas about dress, and indeed spent the
majority of her waking hours in contemplation of that subject. But she
had never, she declared, been, in all her life, so puzzled. She was
perfectly frank.

"But it looks AWFUL, Maggie dear, and yesterday in the shop it didn't
seem so bad, although that old pig wouldn't let us have it the way we
wanted. It's just as it is with poor mother, who gets fatter and
fatter, diet herself as she may, so that she can wear nothing at all
now that looks right, and is only really comfortable in her
night-dress. Of course you're not FAT, Maggie darling, but it's your
figure--everything's either too long or too short for you. You don't
mind my speaking so frankly, do you? I always say one's either a friend
or not, and if one's a friend why then be as rude as you please. What's
friendship for?"

They were, in fact, the greatest possible friends. Maggie had never
possessed a girl-friend before. She had, in the first days of the
acquaintance, been shy and very silent--she had been afraid of going
too far. But soon she had seen that she could not go too far and could
not say too much. She had discovered then a mult