While Veronica was holding this placable talk with me, I discovered in
her the high-bred air, the absence of which I deplored in myself.

How cool and unimpressionable she looked! She did not attract me then.
My mind wandered to what I had heard Mary Bennett say, in recess one
day, that her brother had seen me in church, and came home with the
opinion that I was the handsomest girl in Miss Black's school.

"Is it possible!" replied the girl to whom she had made the remark. "I
never should think of calling her pretty."

"Stop, Veronica," I called; "am I pretty?" She turned back. "Everybody
in Surrey says so; and everybody says I am not." And she banged the
door against me.

She did not come to Barmouth again. She was ill in the winter, and,
father told me, queerer than ever, and more trouble. The summer
passed, and I had no particular torment, except Miss Black's reference
to composition. I could not do justice to the themes she gave us, not
having the books from which she took them at command, and betrayed
an ignorance which excited her utmost contempt, on "The Scenery of
Singapore," "The Habits of the Hottentots," and "The Relative Merits
of Homer and Virgil."

In October Sally and Ruth Aiken came for the fall sewing. They had
farmed it all summer, they said, and were tanned so deep a hue that
their faces bore no small resemblance to ham. Ruth brought me some
apples in an ochre-colored bag, and Sally eyed me with her old
severity. As they took their accustomed seats at the table, I thought