Leona Author:Mrs. Molesworth Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. "what's In A Name." Geraldine was the next to enter the room. She had knocked at May's door on the way down, and was disappointed to find the ... more »bird flown ; for, having, as it were, adopted her cousin as her own special charge, she intended to take her very thoroughly under her wing, and, with the eager enthusiasm characteristic of her, was determined to leave nothing undone in her self-chosen task. May's outer woman came in for no small share of her attention, and she had hurried over her own toilet so as to give some finishing touches to that of the young guest. "Papa is fastidious," she said to herself, "even though he could not define how or where; and so is Jock, and very well able to define his fastidiousness. Though it would spoil him to tell him so, I would really take his opinion of a dress sooner than any woman's I know. I don't want them both to have a first impression that the child is dowdy, or to imagine that it is all owing to new clothes if she js admired afterward ; and even dear Cis is a littleinfluenced by looks, and, somehow, I fear she is a very little prejudiced against May. It did not matter in that little tweed traveling dress so much, but I would like her to look nice, however simple, to-night. She said she was going to wear white; nothing is worse than an ill-fitting white dress." So it was provoking to find May already in the drawing room, out of reach of the friendly touches, or gladly lent sashes and ribbons, which, with a pin here and there, might have done much. "Poor dear," was Miss Caryll's regretful reflection as her glance fell on the girl, "she is too uncon- ceited, too simple, and unworldly She has scarcely given a thought to her own appearance. I wish I had told her to wait for me." "How quickly you have dressed...« less