Blanche was delighted, and studied all the portraits to the last one--that of Marjory's grandmother.
"But isn't there one of your mother?" she asked.
Marjory blushed. "Yes, there is one," she replied, "but it's in another room."
Somehow she felt ashamed of that shut-up, silent room with its hidden treasures that she had never seen.
"But," she continued, "I've got a picture of her when she was a girl, inside this locket." And she unfastened a small, old-fashioned trinket which she wore on a fine gold chain round her neck.
"Oh, how pretty!" cried Blanche; "but not a bit like you, is she?" And then, somewhat confused lest Marjory should misunderstand her, she continued, "I don't mean that you're not pretty, because you are; only it's so funny that you are so dark and your mother was so fair."
"I often and often wish I were fair," said Marjory wistfully. "I should love to be."
"Oh, but your hair is so curly and nice, it's just as good as fair hair. Mother always says that all young girls are pretty so long as they keep themselves tidy and fresh and try to be good. I used to be very cross with my hair, especially when boys in London would call 'carrots' after me, until at last mother made me understand that it is really quite wrong not to be pleased with whatever hair or eyes God has given us, and now I'm more content with it."
"It is lovely hair, and I would kick any boy that called it carrots," cried Marjory stoutly; and she took hold of a strand of it and kissed it impulsively. "Oh, I do think you're such a darling!" she said. "I'm going to be so happy now I've got you!"
This from quiet, self-contained Marjory! Here indeed was a revelation.
Marjory was just putting her locket back inside the neck of her dress, where she always kept it hidden, when Blanche's attention was attracted by something else which hung on the chain.
"What's this silver thing?" she asked; and Marjory explained that it was the half of a sixpence with a hole in it. "Lisbeth says my mother wore it for luck, so I always wear it too."
"How interesting! I wonder where the other half is."
"Lisbeth doesn't know; she says she never saw or heard of the other half."
"If you were in a fairy tale, you'd make all the knights that wanted to marry you go all over the world to find the other half; and then most likely the person that had it would turn out to be a king's son, and he would marry you, and you would be a queen, and be happy ever after."