Then Esther came in, still troubled-looking.  “The dogcart is round,” she said.  “Are you ready, Ju, dearest?  Dear little Judy! be brave, little old woman.”

But Judy was white as death, and utterly limp.  She suffered Esther to put her hat on, to help her into her new jacket, to put her gloves into her hand.  She submitted to being kissed by the whole family, to be half carried downstairs by Esther, to be kissed again by the girls, then by the two good-natured domestics, who, in spite of her peccadilloes, had a warm place in their hearts for her.

Esther and Pip lifted her into the dogcart; and she sat in a little, huddled-up way, looking down at the group on the veranda with eyes that were absolutely tragic in their utter despair.  Her father came out, buttoning his overcoat, and saw the look.

“What foolishness is this?” he said irascibly—­“Esther-great heavens! are you making a goose of yourself, too?”—­there were great tears glistening in his wife’s beautiful eyes.  “Upon my soul, one would think I was going to take the child to be hanged, or at least was going to leave her in a penitentiary.”

A great dry sob broke from Judy’s white lips.

“If you’ll let me stay, Father, I’ll never do another thing to vex you; and you can thrash me instead, ever so hard.”

It was her last effort, her final hope, and she bit her poor quivering lip till it bled while she waited for his answer.

“Let her stay—­oh! do letter stay, we’ll be good always,” came in a chorus from the veranda.  And, “Let her stay, John, please!” Esther called in a tone as entreating as any of the children.

But the Captain sprang into the dogcart and seized the reins from Pat in a burst of anger.

“I think you’re all demented!” he cried.  “She’s going to a thoroughly good home, I’ve paid a quarter in advance already, and I can assure you good people I’m not going to waste it.”

He gave the horse a smart touch with the whip, and in a minute the dogcart had flashed out of the gate, and the small, unhappy face was lost to sight.

CHAPTER VI The Sweetness of Sweet Sixteen

“She is not yet so old
But she may learn:  happier than this,
She is not bred so dull but she can learn.”

Meg’s hair had always been pretty, but during the last two months she had cut herself a fringe, and begun to torture it up in curl papers every night.  And in her private, drawer she kept a jam tin filled with oatmeal, that she used in the water every time she washed, having read it was a great complexion beautifier.  And nightly she rubbed vaseline on her hands and slept in old kid gloves.  And her spare money went in the purchase of “Freckle Lotion,” to remove that slight powdering of warm brown sun-kisses that somehow lent a certain character to her face.

All these things were the outcome of being sixteen, and having found a friend of seventeen.