manure, these days."

Wounded and on the defensive, Missy tried to make her tone chilly.
"I wish you wouldn't be so indelicate, Aunt Nettie," she said.

But Aunt Nettie wasn't abashed. "A horsewoman!" she chortled again.
"I suppose Missy sees herself riding to hounds! All dressed up in a
silk hat and riding-breeches like pictures of society people back
East!"

It didn't add to Missy's comfiture to know she had, in truth,
harboured this ridiculed vision of herself. She coloured and stood
hesitant.

"Someone ought to put pants on that O'Neill girl, anyway," continued
Aunt Nettie with what seemed to her niece unparallelled malice.
"Helen Alison says the Doctor saw her out in the country riding
astraddle. Her mother ought to spank her."

Mother looked at Missy sharply. "Don't let me ever hear of YOU doing
anything like that!"

Missy hung her head, but luckily mother took it for just a general
attitude of dejection. "I can't tolerate tomboys." she went on. "I
can't imagine what's come over you lately."

"It's that O'Neill girl," said Aunt Nettie.

Mother sighed; Missy couldn't know she was lamenting the loss of her
sweet, shy, old-fashioned little girl. But when she spoke next her