Thus beautified, I happened one day to meet our white-headed old pastor!
How he stared!

"Stand still a minute, Nelly, child, and let's look at you," he commanded.
"Why, what have you been doing to yourself?"

The good man's accent wasn't admiring; sadly I realised the failure of my
attempt to compel beauty. When I reached home I sternly soaked the curl
out of my hair, brushed it flat and braided it into two exceedingly tight
pig-tails. Ah, me! It's easy--afterwards--to laugh at the silent sorrows
of childhood, bravely endured alone. At least, it's easy for me, now!

I began to worry Ma about my clothes. I grew ashamed of red-and-black,
pin-checked woollen frocks, and sighed for prettier things. One of the
girls wore at a Sunday school concert a gray and blue dress with many
small ruffles, that seemed to me as elegant as a duchess could want. The
children whispered that it had cost $20, and I wondered if I should ever
again see raiment so wonderful. I knew that it was useless to ask for such
a dress for myself; I should be told that I was not old enough for fine
feathers.

It was our Sabbath day custom to pass directly from the church services to
those of Sunday school, and drive home after these. One stormy day I was
the only scholar in my class, and when we had finished the Bible Lesson
Leaflets and I was watching the long rows of bobbing heads, flaxen and
dark, in the pews full of restless, wriggling children, I turned to the
teacher with a question that I had long been meditating.

"Miss Coleman," I began desperately, "ain't there any way to get pretty?"