The Pink op Perfection
trot in double harness. If Nancy had a new dress at Christmas, Kathleen had a new hat in the spring. Gilbert heard the cry of "Low bridge!" very often after Kathleen appeared on the scene, and Kathleen's ears, too, grew well accustomed to the same phrase after Peter was born.
"Julia never did a naughty thing in her life, nor spoke a wrong word," said her father once, proudly.
"Never mind, she's only ten, and there's hope for her yet," Captain Carey had replied cheerfully; though if he had known her a little later, in her first Beulah days, he might not have been so sanguine. She seemed to have no instinct of adapting herself to the family life, standing just a little aloof and in an attitude of silent criticism. She was a trig, smug prig, Nancy said, delighting in her accidental muster of three short, hard, descriptive words. She had n't a bit of humor, no fun, no gayety, no generous enthusiasms that carried her too far for safety or propriety. She brought with her to Beulah sheaves of school certificates, and when she showed them to Gilbert with their hundred per cent deportment and ninety-eight and seven-eighths per cent scholarship every month for years, he went out behind the barn and kicked
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