It was certainly much pleasanter to sit on the beach and curl Jay's tawny hair, and make him pictures on shells, and teach him verses, and his letters. Gabrielle, with her great dark, side-looking eyes, was not as congenial to Missy, but even she was more satisfactory than the Burney boy, with his dirty hands and terrible dialect. Children without either refinement or innocence are not attractive, and though Missy feared Gabby was not quite innocent, she had a good deal of refinement in appearance and manner. She spoke with a slow, soft manner, and never looked one straight in the eye. She had a passion for jewelry and fine clothes, and made her way direct to any one who had on a bracelet or locket of more than ordinary pretension, and hung over it fascinated. It was sometimes difficult to shake her off, and the questions she asked were wearisome. Missy's visitors were apt to pet and notice her very much at first and then to grow very tired of her. She was a picturesque object, though her face was often dirty, and her hair was always wild. She wore beautiful clothes, badly put on and in wretched order; embroidered French muslin dresses with the ruffles scorched and over-starched; rich Roman scarfs with the fringes full of straws and sticks; kid boots warped at the heel, and almost buttonless; stockings faded, darned with an alien color, loose about the ankles. All this was a trial to Missy, whose love of order and neatness was outraged by the lovely little slattern. For a long while she sewed on furtive buttons, picked clear fringes, re-instated ruffles, caught up yawning rents. She would reconstruct Gabby, then catch her in her arms and kiss her, and tell her how much better she looked when she was neat. Gabby would submit to the caress, but would give a sidelong glance at Missy's perfect appointments--yawn, stretch out her arms, make probably a new rent, and tear away across the lawn to be caught in the first thorn presenting. She was passionately fond of fine clothes, but she was deeply lazy, and inconsequently Bohemian. The idea of constraint galled her. She revolted from Missy's lectures and repairing touches. Then Missy tried her 'prentice hand on the faithless servants. The faithless servants did not take it kindly. They resented her suggestions, and hated her.