st come from the clouds. Then their voices should
be soft, their hands delicate. And the divine something that no
dictionary has ever yet found a word to describe must surround them.
There was a fair-haired girl at school who had such an exquisite smile.
And Daisy Jasper! For her to write verses would be the supreme fitness
of things.

But careless, laughing, untidy Dele Whitney, neither fair nor dark
and--yes, freckled, though her hair was more brown than red now. And to
laugh about it, and toss up her goldpiece and catch it with her other
hand!

"Handsome!" Ben ejaculated when Hanny confided some of her difficulties
to him in a very timid fashion. "Great people don't need to run to
beauty. Still, Mr. Audubon had a lovely face, to my thinking," he added,
when he saw how disappointed the little girl looked. "And, oh! see here,
Mr. Willis is handsome and Gaylord Clark, and there is that picture of
Mrs. Hemans--"

The little girl smiled. Dr. Hoffman had given Margaret a beautifully
bound copy of Mrs. Hemans's poems, and the steel engraving in the front
_was_ handsome. She had already learned two of the poems, and recited
them at school.

"And I don't think Delia so very plain," continued Ben. "You just watch
what beautiful curves there are to her lips, and her brown eyes lighten
up like morning; and when they are a little sad, you can think that
twilight overshadows her. I like to watch them change so. I'm awfully
sorry they're gone away. If we _could_ have another big brother, I'd
like it to be Mr. Theodore."

Hanny used to hope when she was as big as Margaret she would be as
pretty. She didn't think very much about it, only now and then some of
the cousins said,--

"Hanny doesn't seem to grow a bit. And how very light her hair keeps!
You'd hardly think she and Margaret were sisters."

The little girls drew mysteriously closer after Nora went away. They all
kept on at the same school, and played together. But dolls and tea
parties didn't appear to have quite the zest of a year ago.

One Saturday, Mr. Underhill took Hanny down to Beach Street. They were
all delighted to see her, even to Pussy Gray, who came and rubbed
against her, and stretched up until he reached her waist, and, oh, how
he did purr!

"I think he's been kind of homesick for the children," remarked Nora,
gravely, as if she might be quite grown up. "You see he _was_ spoiled
among you all. I was a little afraid at first that he would run away."