"There!" she said, releasing Claribel with a little hug, "now run
along! If you look on the lower shelf of the what-not, you'll see some
shells and coral I put there for just such a little girl."

Claribel walked soberly away to her playing.

"Don't you hurt nothin'!" called Mrs. Wilson; and Claribel responded
properly,--

"No, 'm."

"There!" said Lucindy, watching the precise little back across the
hall, "Now le's talk a mite about vanity. You reach me that green box
behind your chair. Here's the best flowers Miss West had for what I
wanted. Here's my bunnit, too. You see what you think."

She set the untrimmed bonnet on her curls, and laid first a bunch of
bright chrysanthemums against it, and then some strange lavender roses.
The roses turned her complexion to an ivory whiteness, and her anxious,
intent expression combined strangely with that undesirable effect.

"My soul, Lucindy!" cried Mrs. Wilson, startled into a more robust
frankness than usual, "you do look like the Old Nick!"

A shade came over Miss Lucindy's honest face. It seemed, for a moment,
as if she were going to cry.

"Don't you like 'em, Jane?" she asked, appealingly. "Won't neither of
'em do?"