Page:Emma Speed Sampson--The shorn lamb.djvu/212

208 made it a rule not to look at their so-called niece unless it was positively necessary to correct her about something. Coldly to avert their eyes seemed to them to be the most aristocratic way to express their disapproval. This getting late to dinner was cause enough to have them withdraw the honor of their glances for a long period. When their brother burst into such merriment they involuntarily looked in the direction in which he was looking.

Then the ladies laughed, too, though not quite so uproariously as their brother. Rebecca's appearance was certainly funny. Her hair, where she had cut the braid, was standing up in a most ferocious-looking bush.

"Oh!" she cried, putting her hand up to her hair, and trying to smooth down the unruly bush, "I was in such a hurry I had to cut it off," she faltered. "It was plaited through button-holes in my bonnet. Aunt Pearly Gates fixed it for me, so I could keep on my bonnet and try to get to be more Taylorish in my complexion. I hated so to be late for dinner, but my stomach was slow to-day—owing to—owing to—"

She could say no more. This was a new thing, to be the only one who was not laughing. It was very uncomfortable, too, to be so funny looking that persons who went for months with-