and readily guessed that the word which she could not remember, was
"slattern." She was a fat, chubby little girl, with a round, sunny
face and laughing blue eyes, while her brown hair hung around her
forehead in short, tangled curls. The front breadth of her pink
gingham dress was plastered with mud. One of her shoe strings was
untied, and the other one gone. The bottom of one pantalet was
entirely torn off, and the other rolled nearly to the knee disclosing
a pair of ankles of no Liliputian dimensions. The strings of her white
sun-bonnet were twisted into a hard knot, and the bonnet itself hung
down her back, partially hiding the chasm made by the absence of three
or four hooks and eyes. Altogether she was just the kind of little
girl which one often finds in the country swinging on gates and making
mud pies.

Mary was naturally very neat; and in reply to Jenny's question as to
whether she looked like a fright, she answered, "I like your face
better than I do your dress, because it is clean."

"Why, so was my dress this morning," said Jenny, "but here can't any
body play in the mud and not get dirty. My pantalet hung by a few
threads, and as I wanted a rag to wash my earthens with, I tore it
off. Why don't you wear pantalets?"

Mary blushed painfully, as she tried to hide her bare feet with her
dress, but she answered, "When mother died I had only two pair, and
Miss Grundy says I sha'nt wear them every day. It makes too much
washing."

"Miss Grundy! She's a spiteful old thing. She shook me once because I
laughed at that droll picture Sal Furbush drew of her on the front