Page:Malvina of Brittany - Jerome (1916).djvu/244

 generally depend for attraction, whatever its faults of form. Nor could it truthfully be said that sweetness of disposition afforded compensation.

"A self-willed, cantankerous little imp I call her," was Mrs. Travers's comment, expressed after one of the many trials of strength between them, from which Miss Kavanagh had as usual emerged triumphant.

"It's her father," explained Abner Herrick, feeling himself unable to contradict.

"It's unfortunate," answered Mrs. Travers, "whatever it is."

To Uncle Ab himself, as she had come to call him, she could on occasion be yielding and affectionate; but that, as Mrs. Travers took care to point out to her, was a small thing to her credit.

"If you had the instincts of an ordinary Christian child," explained Mrs. Travers to her, "you'd be thinking twenty-four hours a day of what you could do to repay him for all his loving kindness to you; instead of causing him, as you know you do, a dozen heartaches in a week. You're an ungrateful little monkey, and when he's gone you'll"

Upon which Miss Kavanagh, not waiting