Martha," she said heartily.

Martha's pale face flushed with pleasure. Pearl was quick to notice
what a fine forehead and what steady, calm eyes she had, and that
she would be a good-looking girl if her hair were combed becomingly.
Poor Martha, who stayed so much at home, knew but one way of
hair-dressing, which was to part it in the middle and comb it
straight back--the way hair was done when her mother was young. She
was dressed in a clean, starched dress of gray print, plain as a
nun's. Pearl noticed that her teeth were clean and even, and her
active brain was doing a rapid summing-up of Martha's chances for
beauty.

"Look at how pretty her teeth are," she was thinking to herself; "she
may not know how to do her hair, but you bet she takes care of them.
Whether or not yer hair's combed right is a matter of style, but
clean or dirty teeth is a matter of the heart. Martha's heart's all
right, you bet; and say, wouldn't she look fine in a wine, coloured
dress, made long, with lots of fluffy things to make her look rounder
and fatter, and her hair like Miss Morrison's, all kinkly and puffed,
with a smashin' big combs with diamonds--no, I wouldn't just like a
big comb either, it wouldn't suit her face. I just wish Camilla could
live in the house with her for a while. She'd make Martha look a
different girl. She's got hair, too," Pearl was thinking, "but she
rolls it into such a hard little nub you'd never know. It needs to be
all fluffed out. That nub of hair is just like Martha herself. It's
all there, good stuff in it, but it needs to be fluffed out."

"Stay for tea, Pearl," Martha was saying. "Father and Mother are
away, and there's only Bud and me at home."

Pearl readily agreed. She had told her mother that she probably would
not be home for tea. Pearl's social instincts were strong.

Martha took her into the parlour, a close, stuffy little room, and
showed some of her treasured possessions. There were the hair-wreath,
the seed-wreath, and the wax flowers, which, to Pearl, were triumphs
of art. There were three huckaback cushions standing stiff and grand
on the high back of the lounge, and another one made of little buns
of silk beside them, all far beyond the reach of mortal head.

"Do you never use them, Martha?" Pearl asked, touching them gently.
"Do you know, I like cushions that are not half as pretty, but look
more friendly like and welcome. But these are just lovely," she added
quickly.

An enlarged p