Dumps - A Plain Girl By L.T. Meade Illustrations by R. Lillie Published by E.P. Dutton and Company, New York. This edition dated 1905. Dumps - A Plain Girl, by L.T. Meade. ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ DUMPS - A PLAIN GIRL, BY L.T. MEADE. PART ONE, CHAPTER ONE. A LESSON IN PATIENCE. The boys were most troublesome. They never would mind in the very least when father had one of his worst headaches. It was not that they did not try to be good--I will say that Alex had the kindest heart, and that Charley was good-natured too--but it seemed to me as though they could not walk quietly; they would stump upstairs, and they would go heavily across the big attic where they slept, and father was so fearfully sensitive; the least sound made him start up, and then he would get into a sort of frenzy and hardly know what he was doing. He would call out to the boys and thunder to them to be quiet; and then his head was worse than ever. Oh, it was all dreadful--dreadful! I sometimes did not know what to do. I am going to tell the story of my life as far as I can; but before I begin I must say that I do wonder why girls, as a rule, have a harder time of it than boys, and why they learn quite early in life to be patient and to give up their own will. Now, of course, if father comes in after his very hard day's work, schoolmastering, as he calls it, and when he has one of his fearful headaches, I sit like a lamb and hardly speak; but it never enters into Alex's head, or into Charley's, that they ought to be equally considerate. I do not for a minute want to praise myself, but I know that girls have an opportunity very early in life of learning patience. Well now, to begin my story. I was exactly fifteen years and a half. I should not have a birthday, therefore, for six months. I was sorry for that, for birthdays are very nice; on one day at least in the year you are queen, and you are thought more of than any one else in the house. You are put first instead of last, and you get delicious presents. Some girls get presents every day--at least every week--but my sort of girl only gets a present worth considering on her birthday. Of all my presents I loved flowers best; for we lived in London, where flowers are scarce, and we hardly ever went into the country. My name is Rachel Grant, and I expect I was a very ordinary sort of girl. Alex said so. Alex said that if I had beautiful, dancing dark eyes, and very red lips, and a good figure, I might queen it over all the boys, even on the days when it wasn't my birthday; but he said the true name for me ought not to be Rachel, but Dumps, and how could any girl expect to rule over either boys or girls with such a name as Dumps? I suppose I was a little stodgy in my build, but father said I might grow out of that, for my mother was tall.