"I do think it is a perfect shame those horrid Glenn girls are to be invited up here to Rex's wedding," cried little Birdie Lyon, hobbling into the room where Mrs. Corliss sat, busily engaged in hemming some new table-linen, and throwing herself down on a low hassock at her feet, and laying down her crutch beside her--"it is perfectly awful." "Why," said Mrs. Corliss, smoothing the nut-brown curls back from the child's flushed face, "I should think you would be very pleased. They were your neighbors when you were down in Florida, were they not?" "Yes," replied the little girl, frowning, "but I don't like them one bit. Bess and Gertie--that's the two eldest ones, make me think of those stiff pictures in the gay trailing dresses in the magazines. Eve is nice, but she's a Tom-boy." "A wh--at!" cried Mrs. Corliss. "She's a Tom-boy, mamma always said; she romps, and has no manners." "They will be your neighbors when you go South again--so I suppose your brother thought of that when he invited them." "He never dreamed of it," cried Birdie; "it was Miss Pluma's doings." "Hush, child, don't talk so loud," entreated the old housekeeper; "she might hear you." "I don't care," cried Birdie. "I don't like her anyhow, and she knows it. When Rex is around she is as sweet as honey to me, and calls me 'pretty little dear,' but when Rex isn't around she scarcely notices me, and I _hate_ her--yes, I do." Birdie clinched her little hands together venomously, crying out the words in a shrill scream. "Birdie," cried Mrs. Corliss, "you _must not_ say such hard, cruel things. I have heard you say, over and over again, you liked Mr. Hurlhurst, and you must remember Pluma is his daughter, and she is to be your brother's wife. You must learn to speak and think kindly of her." "I never shall like her," cried Birdie, defiantly, "and I am sure Mr. Hurlhurst don't." "Birdie!" ejaculated the good lady in a fright, dropping her scissors and spools in consternation; "let me warn you not to talk so again; if Miss Pluma was to once hear you, you would have a sorry enough time of it all your after life. What put it into your head Mr. Hurlhurst did not like his own daughter?" "Oh, lots of things," answered Birdie. "When I tell him how pretty every one says she is, he groans, and says strange things about fatal beauty, which marred all his young life, and ever so many things I can't understand, and his face grows so hard and so stern I am almost afraid of him." "He is thinking of Pluma's mother," thought Mrs. Corliss--but she made no answer. "He likes to talk to me," pursued the child, rolling the empty spools to and fro with her crutch, "for he pities me because I am lame." "Bless your dear little heart," said Mrs. Corliss, softly stroking the little girl's curls; "it is seldom poor old master takes to any one as he has to you." "Do I look anything like the little child that died?" questioned Birdie.