"Never mind, Gladys," soothed Grace Allen. "Mermaids have green hair and you know how beautiful _they_ are."
Oddly enough, this curious mishap made several new friends for Gladys among the girls, whose ready sympathy was aroused for an unfortunate maiden who had to go about with pale green hair. Augusta Lemon was one of those tender hearted young persons, Lillian Thwaite another. About this time, too, Grace Allen began to wander about, arm in arm, with Gladys.
Cora Doyle, to whom the Lakeville girls were greatly indebted for much of the past history of Highland Hall, proved a likeable girl, after one learned not to believe all that she said. Cora just naturally exaggerated. When she was cold she was absolutely frozen. When she was warm, she was positively boiled. If she possessed one black and blue spot she _knew_ she had ten thousand and if she were slightly indisposed she was positive she was dying. In short, she called "Wolf, Wolf," when the wolf was conspicuously absent.
This trait of Cora's was beginning to lead to embarrassing consequences. Cora's wild statements in school were always taken with a grain of salt. Worse than that, her own people wouldn't believe her. Even when she outgrew her shoes and wrote home for larger ones, they were sure she only meant more stylish ones; so poor Cora limped about in short shoes and acquired a corn. And now she had a new trouble. Whether it was basketball or the extra pie that she ate under the porch with Maude, no one knew, but Cora began suddenly to grow very rapidly. Her sleeves and her skirts were visibly retreating and she was showing more wrist and more stocking than was considered becoming.
"My folks won't _believe_ me," wailed Cora, reading her letter from home. "I've _told_ them that my knees show and my sleeves are up to my elbows and they won't _believe_ me."
"But your skirts _aren't_ up to your knees," laughed Marjory.
"Anyway, they're getting there and I have to stay up nights letting out hems."
"Never mind," consoled Jean, "your folks will see for themselves, when you go home for Christmas. Of course you may have to go in a paper bag--"
"That's just the trouble. I _don't_ go home for Christmas--I live too far away. I'm going to visit Maude in Chicago--and it's _her_ folks that will see for themselves how many miles of legs and wrists I'm showing."