Page:Carroll Rankin--Dandelion Cottage.djvu/161

 Rh   and roared with a deep bass voice if anyone attempted to interfere with him. The dog carried mud into the neat little cottage, scratched up the garden and growled if the girls tried to drive him out.

"But," said Mabel, disconsolately, in one of the rare moments when the girls were alone, "I could stand the baby and the dog, but I can't stand Laura."

"Laura certainly likes to boss," said Bettie, who looked pale and worried. "I don't just see what we're going to do about it. I try to be nice to her but I can't like her. Mother says we must be polite to her, but I don't believe mother knows just what a queer girl she is—you see she's always as quiet as can be when there are grown people around."

"Yes," agreed Mabel, "her company manners are so much properer than mine that mother says she wishes I were more like her."

"Well," said Marjory,