Copy-Cat Other Stories | Page 4

an under-meaning, and Mrs. Diantha flushed. Amelia did not in
the least resemble the Wheelers, who were a handsome set. She looked
remarkably like her mother, who was a plain woman, only little Amelia
did not have a square chin. Her chin was pretty and round, with a little
dimple in it. In fact, Amelia's chin was the pretti- est feature she had.
Her hair was phenomenally straight. It would not even yield to hot
curling- irons, which her grandmother Wheeler had tried sur-
reptitiously several times when there was a little girls' party. "I never
saw such hair as that poor child has in all my life," she told the other
grand- mother, Mrs. Stark. "Have the Starks always had such very
straight hair?"
Mrs. Stark stiffened her chin. Her own hair was very straight. "I don't
know," said she, "that the Starks have had any straighter hair than other
people. If Amelia does not have anything worse to contend with than
straight hair I rather think she will get along in the world as well as
most people."
"It's thin, too," said Grandmother Wheeler, with a sigh, "and it hasn't a
mite of color. Oh, well, Amelia is a good child, and beauty isn't
everything." Grandmother Wheeler said that as if beauty were a great
deal, and Grandmother Stark arose and shook out her black silk skirts.
She had money, and loved to dress in rich black silks and laces.
"It is very little, very little indeed," said she, and she eyed Grandmother
Wheeler's lovely old face, like a wrinkled old rose as to color, faultless
as to feature, and swept about by the loveliest waves of shining silver
hair.
Then she went out of the room, and Grandmother Wheeler, left alone,
smiled. She knew the worth of beauty for those who possess it and

those who do not. She had never been quite reconciled to her son's
marrying such a plain girl as Diantha Stark, although she had money.
She considered beauty on the whole as a more valuable asset than mere
gold. She regretted always that poor little Amelia, her only grandchild,
was so very plain-looking. She always knew that Amelia was very
plain, and yet sometimes the child puzzled her. She seemed to see
reflections of beauty, if not beauty itself, in the little colorless face, in
the figure, with its too-large joints and utter absence of curves. She
sometimes even wondered privately if some subtle resemblance to the
handsome Wheelers might not be in the child and yet appear. But she
was mistaken. What she saw was pure mimicry of a beautiful ideal.
Little Amelia tried to stand like Lily Jennings; she tried to walk like her;
she tried to smile like her; she made endeavors, very often futile, to
dress like her. Mrs. Wheeler did not in the least approve of furbelows
for children. Poor little Amelia went clad in severe simplicity; durable
woolen frocks in winter, and washable, unfadable, and non-soil-show-
ing frocks in summer. She, although her mother had perhaps more
money wherewith to dress her than had any of the other mothers, was
the plainest-clad little girl in school. Amelia, moreover, never tore a
frock, and, as she did not grow rapidly, one lasted several seasons. Lily
Jennings was destructive, although dainty. Her pretty clothes were
renewed every year. Amelia was helpless before that problem. For a
little girl burning with aspirations to be and look like another little girl
who was beautiful and wore beautiful clothes, to be obliged to set forth
for Madame's on a lovely spring morning, when thin attire was in
evidence, dressed in dark-blue-and- white-checked gingham, which she
had worn for three summers, and with sleeves which, even to childish
eyes, were anachronisms, was a trial. Then to see Lily flutter in a frock
like a perfectly new white flower was torture; not because of jealousy --
Amelia was not jealous; but she so admired the other little girl, and so
loved her, and so wanted to be like her.
As for Lily, she hardly ever noticed Amelia. She was not aware that she
herself was an object of adoration; for she was a little girl who searched
for admiration in the eyes of little boys rather than little girls, although
very innocently. She always glanced slyly at Johnny Trumbull when
she wore a pretty new frock, to see if he noticed. He never did, and she
was sharp enough to know it. She was also child enough not to care a

bit, but to take a queer pleasure in the sensation of scorn which she felt
in consequence. She would eye Johnny from head to foot, his boy's
clothing somewhat spotted, his bulging pockets, his always dusty shoes,
and when he twisted uneasily, not understanding why,