Page:Carroll Rankin--Dandelion Cottage.djvu/26

 6 , when Marjory, who was less sedate than she appealed, forgot to be polite. At such times, her ways were apt to be less pleasing than those of either Betty or Jean, because her wit was nimbler, her tongue sharper and her heart a trifle less tender. Her mother had died when Marjory was only a few weeks old, her father had lived only two years longer, and the rather solitary little girl had missed much of the warm family affection that had fallen to the lot of her three more fortunate friends. Those who knew her well found much in her to like, but among her school-mates there were girls who said that Marjory was "stuck-up," affected and "too smart."

Mabel, the fourth in this little quartette of friends, was eleven, large for her age, and young for her years, always an unfortunate combination of circumstances. She was intensely human and therefore liable to err, and, it may be said, she very seldom