cried
easily and on every possible occasion,--she had forgotten it by
tea-time, and would chatter to him as happily as ever.

She was just one of those persevering people who seem bound to be
snubbed; one cannot help it. It was as natural to scold Mattie as it
was to praise other people; and yet it was impossible not to like the
little woman, though she had no fine feelings, as Archie said, and was
not thin-skinned. Grace always spoke a good word for her; she was very
kind to Mattie in her way,--though it must be owned that she showed
her small respect as an elder sister. None of her brothers and sisters
respected Mattie in the least; they laughed at her, and took liberties
with her, presuming largely on her good nature. "It is only Mattie;
nobody cares what she thinks," as Clyde would often say. "Matt the
Muddler," as Frederick named her.

"I wonder what Mattie would say if any one ever fell in love with
her?" Grace once observed in fun to Archie. "Do you know, I think she
would be all her life, thanking her husband for the unexpected honor
he had done her, and trying to prove to him that he had not made such
a great mistake, after all."

"Mattie's husband! He must be an odd sort of person, I should think."
And then Archie laughed, in not the politest manner. Certainly Mattie
was not appreciated by her family. She was not looking her best this
morning when she went into her brother's study. She wore the
offending plaid dress,--a particular large black-and-white check that
he thought especially ugly. Her hat-trimmings were frayed, and the
straw itself was burnt brown by the sun, and her hair was ill arranged
and rough, for she never wasted much time on her own person, and, to
crown the whole, she looked flushed and heated.

Archie, who was sitting at his writing-table in severely-cut
ecclesiastical garments, looking as trim and well-appointed a young
clergyman as one might wish to see, might be forgiven for the tone of
ill-suppressed irritation with which he said,--

"Oh, Mattie! what a figure you look! I am positively ashamed that any
one should see you. That hat is only fit to frighten the birds."

"Oh, it will do very well for the mornings," returned Mattie,
perfectly undisturbed at these compliments. "Nobody looks at me: so
what does it matter?" But this remark, which she made in all
simplicity, only irritated him more.

"If you have no proper pride, you might at least consider my feelings.
Do you think a