Lovey Mary

								

black water-waves seemed irrevocably painted upon her high forehead.
She was a routinist; she believed in system, she believed in order,
and she believed that godliness was akin to cleanliness. When she
found an exception to a rule she regarded the exception in the light
of an error. As she stood, brush in hand, before Lovey Mary, she
thought for the hundredth time that the child was an exception.
"Stand up," she said firmly but not unkindly. "I thought you had too
much sense to do your hair that way. Come back to the bath-room, and I
will arrange it properly."
Lovey Mary gave a farewell kick at the wall before she followed Miss
Bell. One side of her head was covered with tight black ringlets, and
the other bristled with curl-papers.
"When I was a little girl," said Miss Bell, running the wet comb
ruthlessly through the treasured curls, "the smoother my hair was the
better I liked it. I used to brush it down with soap and water to make
it stay."
Lovey Mary looked at the water-waves and sighed.
"If you're ugly you never can get married with anybody, can you, Miss
Bell?" she asked in a spirit of earnest inquiry.
Miss Bell's back became stiffer, if possible, than before.
"Marriage isn't the only thing in the world. The homelier you are the
better chance you have of being good. Now the Lord meant you to be
plain"--assisting Providence by drawing the braids so tight that the
girl's eyebrows were elevated with the strain. "If he had meant you to
have curls he would have given them to you."
"Well, didn't he want me to have a mother and father?" burst forth
Lovey Mary, indignantly, "or clothes, or money, or nothing? Can't I
ever get nothing at all 'cause I wasn't started out with nothing?"
Miss Bell was too shocked to reply. She gave a final brush to the
sleek, wet head and turned sorrowfully away. Lovey Mary ran after her
and caught her hand.
"I'm sorry," she cried impulsively. "I want to be good. Please--
please--"
Miss Bell drew her hand away coldly. "You needn't go to Sabbath-school
this morning," she said in an injured tone; "you can stay here and
think over what you have said. I am not angry with you. I never allow
myself to get angry. I don't understand, that's all. You are such a
good girl about some things and so unreasonable about others. With a
good home, good clothes, and kind treatment, what else could a girl
want?"
Receiving no answer to this inquiry, Miss Bell adjusted her cuffs and
departed with the conviction that she had done all that was possible
to throw light upon a dark subject.
Lovey Mary, left alone, shed bitter tears on her clean gingham dress.
Thirteen years ought to reconcile a person even to gingham dresses
with white china buttons down the back, and round straw hats bought at
wholesale. But Lovey Mary's rebellion of spirit was something that