Peggy

ces at the newcomers showed her that they belonged to a species unknown to her. Living on a great prairie farm, she had known no girls save her sisters and the two cousins with whom she had spent a happy summer at Fernley House, the home of her uncle, Mr. John Montfort, a year before.

But neither sisters nor cousins, nor Bertha Haughton herself, bore any resemblance to the two young women who now seated themselves on her two straight-backed chairs. Both were dressed in the extreme of the fashion, which was not a specially graceful one. Both wore their hair elaborately dressed, with a profusion of gold and silver pins, a passing fancy easily carried to extravagance. Both were pretty, and there was even a kind of likeness between them, though it vanished when one looked closely. Viola Vincent had limpid blue eyes, and long lashes which she had a way of dropping, as she had been told that they looked well on her cheek, which was clear and delicately tinted. She smiled a good deal, and in doing so showed a