"It's long enough for such a plain body as myself; you want to make a fashionable lady of me."
"I wouldn't have you a fashionable lady for the world! but I do want you to look your very bestest."
"You have forgotten my pin, dear; it was on the bureau beside my collar."
"No I haven't forgotten it," said Marion, who was opening and shutting various boxes in her upper drawer. "Where in the world is that ribbon? Here it is. Now, Miss Christine, I don't want you to wear the pin; it's the same you wear every day, and you ought to have some color about you somewhere; so I want you to wear this knot of blue satin, and I've got a band to match. Please do, just for my sake!"
"Why, Marion, you will make me absurd; you forget what an old maid I am."
"Old maid! I should think as much," replied Marion, pinning on the bow in spite of all remonstrance,--"old maid indeed! You're nothing of the sort, and what's more you know you never will be;" and Marion gave a mischievous glance at her teacher.
"Don't be impertinent, Marion," replied Miss Christine; but "old maid" as she called herself, she could not keep a very girlish blush from glowing on her cheeks at her pupil's words.
"I think you are just as lovely as you can be!" exclaimed Marion. "Oh! I forgot; the band for your hair;--there! now you're complete."
"Why, Miss Christine, you'll hardly know yourself," said Florence; "just look in the glass. Those crimps make you look five years younger."
"I'm going down to get Sallie," said Marion. "Don't put your things on yet, please; she wants to see you."
Marion ran off, returning in a few moments with Sarah Brown, who, the moment she saw her teacher, threw open her arms, and gave her a most emphatic hug.
"Now you look just as you ought. I'm perfectly delighted you're going, and your hair is beautiful,--that band is so becoming."
"That is all Marion's doings; in fact, I owe all my 'fine feathers' to her, and without them I should not be such a 'fine bird' as you seem to think me;" and Miss Christine laughed her dear, little laugh, that her scholars loved so well, and glanced affectionately at the group of admiring girls about her.
"You are not a 'fine bird' at all," exclaimed Sarah, in her most enthusiastic way; "you are just a dear, white dove."