deal for a girl to have to look after, a house and father and the kid
and me, but you have two maids and if you only were a better manager.
Why you don't seem even to take time to dress like other girls, you are
always kind of flying apart with a button off your waist or the braid
torn on your skirt, and I do love a spick and span girl. Why don't you
look like Betty Ashton, she's always up to the limit?"

Margaret Everett coiled her yellow plaits about her head, keeping her
back turned to hide the trembling of her lips until she was able to
answer cheerfully. "Why yes, I should like to look like 'The Princess'
and wear clothes like she does, but in the first place I am not so good
looking as Betty, I haven't a maid to see after my clothes and fifty
dollars a month to dress on--and I haven't a mother."

Jack Everett flushed. He was a splendid looking fellow, big and brown,
with light hair of almost the same coppery tones as his sister's, and
although but eighteen was nearly six feet tall. It was his last year at
the Male High School of which his father was President, and already he
had passed with high honors his entrance examinations for Dartmouth
College.

"Oh, I say, Meg, don't pile it on," he protested. "You are handsome
enough all right, and it was only on your own account that I was wishing
you could run things better."

Meg had evidently given up the idea of her engagement by this time, for
she had seated herself in a big chair with her small brother on her lap
and was rocking him slowly back and forth, his head resting on her
shoulder.