“I am afraid I vexed Selina greatly about her to-night, and yet what can one do?  Selina is so very unjust—­always expecting impossibilities.  She would like to have Elizabeth at once a first rate cook, a finished house-maid, and an attentive lady’s maid, and all without being taught!  She gives her things to do, neither waiting to see if they are comprehended by her, nor showing her how to do them.  Of course the girl stands gaping and staring and does not do them, or does them so badly, that she gets a thorough scolding.”

“Is she very stupid, do you think?” asked Johanna, in unconscious appeal to her pet’s stronger judgment.

“No, I don’t.  Far from stupid; only very ignorant, and—­you would hardly believe it—­very nervous.  Selina frightens her.  She gets on extremely well with me.”

“Any one would, my dear.  That is,” added the conscientious elder sister, still afraid of making the “child” vain, “any one whom you took pain with.  But do you think you can ever make any thing out of Elizabeth?  Her month ends to-morrow.  Shall we let her go?”

“And perhaps get in her place a story-teller—­a tale-bearer—­even a thief.  No, no; let us

    ’Rather bear the ills we have,
    Than fly to others that we know not of;’

and a thief would be worse than even a South Sea Islander.”

“Oh yes, my dear,” said Johanna, with a shiver.

“By-the-by, the first step in the civilization of the Polynesians was giving them clothes.  And I have heard say that crime and rags often go together; that a man unconsciously feels that he owes something to himself and society in the way of virtue when he has a clean face and clean shirt, and a decent coat on.  Suppose we try the experiment of dressing Elizabeth.  How many old gowns have we?”

The number was few.  Nothing in the Leaf family was ever cast off till its very last extremity of decay; the talent that

    “Gars auld claes look amaist as gude’s the new”

being specially possessed by Hilary.  She counted over her own wardrobe and Johanna’s but found nothing that could be spared.

“Yes, my love, there is one thing.  You certainly shall never put on that old brown merino again; though you have laid it so carefully by, as if you meant it to come out as fresh as ever next winter.  No, Hilary, you must have a new gown, and you must give Elizabeth your brown merino.”

Hilary laughed, and replied not.

Now it might be a pathetic indication of a girl who had very few clothes, but Hilary had a superstitious weakness concerning hers.—­Every dress had its own peculiar chronicle of the scenes where it had been, the enjoyments she had shared in it.  Particular dresses were special memorials of her loves, her pleasures, her little passing pains; as long as a bit remained of the poor old fabric the sight of it recalled them all.

This brown merino—­in which she had sat two whole winters over her Greek and Latin by Robert Lyon’s side, which he had once stopped to touch and notice, saying what a pretty color it was, and how he liked soft-feeling dresses for women—­to cut up this old brown merino seemed to hurt her so she could almost have cried.