He walked jauntily away, being hungry, and the unfortunate
Matthew was left to do that which was harder for him than
bearding a lion in its den--walk up to a girl--a strange
girl--an orphan girl--and demand of her why she wasn't a boy.
Matthew groaned in spirit as he turned about and shuffled
gently down the platform towards her.

She had been watching him ever since he had passed her and
she had her eyes on him now. Matthew was not looking at her
and would not have seen what she was really like if he had
been, but an ordinary observer would have seen this:
A child of about eleven, garbed in a very short, very tight,
very ugly dress of yellowish-gray wincey. She wore a faded
brown sailor hat and beneath the hat, extending down her
back, were two braids of very thick, decidedly red hair.
Her face was small, white and thin, also much freckled; her
mouth was large and so were her eyes, which looked green in
some lights and moods and gray in others.

So far, the ordinary observer; an extraordinary observer
might have seen that the chin was very pointed and
pronounced; that the big eyes were full of spirit and
vivacity; that the mouth was sweet-lipped and expressive;
that the forehead was broad and full; in short, our
discerning extraordinary observer might have concluded that
no commonplace soul inhabited the body of this stray woman-
child of whom shy Matthew Cuthbert was so ludicrously afraid.

Matthew, however, was spared the ordeal of speaking first,