fluffy, reddish-yellow hair, and a shower of coaxing little pitfalls
called dimples round her pretty mouth. She made you think of a
sunbeam, a morning songbird, a dancing butterfly, or an impetuous
little crocus just out after the first spring shower. Dislike her?
You couldn't. Approve of her? You wouldn't always. Love her? Of
course; you couldn't help yourself,--I defy you.

To be sure, if you prefer a quiet life, and do not want to be led
into exploits of all kinds, invariably beginning with risk, attended
with danger, and culminating in despair, you had better not engage in
an intimate friendship with Miss Pauline Oliver, but fix your
affections on the quiet, thoughtful, but not less lovable girl who
sits by the bedside stroking Elsie Howard's thin white hand.
Nevertheless, I am obliged to state that Margery Noble herself,
earnest, demure, and given to reflection, was Polly's willing slave
and victim. However, I've forgotten to tell you that Polly was as
open and frank as the daylight, at once torrid and constant in her
affections, brave, self-forgetting as well as self-willed; and that
though she did have a tongue just the least bit saucy, she used it
valiantly in the defence of others. 'She'll come out all right,'
said a dear old-fashioned grandfather of hers whom she had left way
back in a Vermont farmhouse. 'She's got to be purged o' considerable
dross, but she'll come out pure gold, I tell you.'

Pretty, wise, tender Margery Noble, with her sleek brown braids, her
innocent, questioning eyes, her soft voice, willing hands, and shy,
quiet manners! 'She will either end as the matron of an orphan
asylum or as head-nurse in a hospital.' So Bell Winship often used
to say; but then she was chiefly celebrated for talking nonsense, and
nobody ever paid much attention to her. But if you should crave a