"My own must do," said Rhoda.

"Yes, and you to look like lady and servant-gal a-goin' out for an
airin'; and she to feel it! Pretty, that'd be!"

"She won't be ashamed of me," Rhoda faltered; and then hummed a little
tune, and said firmly--"It's no use my trying to look like what I'm not."

"No, truly;" Mrs. Sumfit assented. "But it's your bein' behind the
fashions what hurt me. As well you might be an old thing like me, for
any pleasant looks you'll git. Now, the country--you're like in a
coalhole for the matter o' that. While London, my dear, its pavement and
gutter, and omnibus traffic; and if you're not in the fashion, the little
wicked boys of the streets themselves 'll let you know it; they've got
such eyes for fashions, they have. And I don't want my Dahly's sister to
be laughed at, and called 'coal-scuttle,' as happened to me, my dear,
believe it or not--and shoved aside, and said to--'Who are you?' For she
reely is nice-looking. Your uncle Anthony and Mr. Robert agreed upon
that."

Rhoda coloured, and said, after a time, "It would please me if people
didn't speak about my looks."

The looking-glass probably told her no more than that she was nice to the
eye, but a young man who sees anything should not see like a mirror, and
a girl's instinct whispers to her, that her image has not been taken to
heart when she is accurately and impartially described by him.

The key to Rhoda at this period was a desire to be made warm with praise