A bit of conversation gives the clue to character so easily that Mrs. Oliver and her daughter need little more description.  You can see the pretty, fragile mother resting among her pillows, and I need only tell you that her dress is always black, her smile patient, her eyes full of peace, and her hands never idle save in this one daily resting-hour prescribed by the determined Miss Polly, who mounts guard during the appointed time like a jailer who expects his prisoner to escape if he removes his eagle eye for an instant.

The aforesaid impetuous Miss Polly has also told you something of herself in this brief interview.  She is evidently a person who feels matters rather strongly, and who is wont to state them in the strongest terms she knows.  Every word she utters shows you that, young as she looks, she is the real head of the family, and that her vigorous independence of thought and speech must be the result of more care and responsibility than ordinarily fall to the lot of a girl of sixteen.

Certain of her remarks must be taken with a grain of salt.  Her assertion of willingness to blow up innocent boarders in their beds would seem, for instance, to indicate a vixenish and vindictive sort of temper quite unwarranted by the circumstances; but a glance at the girl herself contradicts the thought.

Item:  A firm chin.  She will take her own way if she can possibly get it; but item; a sweet, lovable mouth framed in dimples; a mouth that breaks into smiles at the slightest provocation, no matter how dreary the outlook; a mouth that quivers at the first tender word, and so the best of all correctives to the determined little chin below.

Item:  A distinctly saucy nose; an aggressive, impertinent, spirited little nose, with a few freckles on it; a nose that probably leads its possessor into trouble occasionally.

Item:  Two bright eyes, a trifle overproud and willful, perhaps, but candid and full of laughter.

Item:  A head of brilliant, auburn hair; lively, independent, frisky hair, each glittering thread standing out by itself and asserting its own individuality; tempestuous hair that never “stays put;” capricious hair that escapes hairpins and comes down unexpectedly; hoydenish hair that makes the meekest hats look daring.

For the rest, a firm, round figure, no angles, everything, including elbows, in curves; blooming cheeks and smooth-skinned, taper-fingered hands tanned a very honest brown,—­the hands of a person who loves beauty.

Polly Oliver’s love of beautiful things was a passion, and one that had little gratification; but luckily, though good music, pictures, china, furniture, and “purple and fine linen” were all conspicuous by their absence, she could feast without money and without price on the changeful loveliness of the Santa Ynez mountains, the sapphire tints of the placid Pacific, and the gorgeous splendor of the Californian wild-flowers, so that her sense of beauty never starved.