The Smylies were the most important people in the village of Heathermuir. Their mills supplied the countryside with flour, and their bakery was the only one of any size in the district. They had built their own house; it had a garden attached to it and a greenhouse; and, to crown all, their only child Mary Ann was to be brought up as a lady. With this object in view, the ambitious parents had sent the girl to a "Seminary for Young Ladies" at Morristown, some twenty miles away, and were greatly pleased with the result, feeling that Mary Ann was really quite a lady. That young person was delighted to come home and be worshipped by her admiring parents; and their idea that a real lady should never soil her fingers by household work, or indeed by work of any kind, suited her very well.
Mrs. Smylie, bursting with pride as her daughter appeared, watched the meeting between the two girls. Mary Ann's dress was very much overtrimmed, her hair was frizzed into a spiky bush across her forehead, and her somewhat freckled face was composed into an expression of serene self-complacency. She was the only girl in the village who was at a boarding-school; not even Hunter's Marjory, with all her airs, could boast this advantage, she thought; and Mary Ann felt her superiority, and gloried in it.
Mrs. Smylie noted with great pride that the hand her daughter held out to Marjory was white and delicate--in great contrast to Marjory's brown one. "But then," she reflected, "the puir bairn hasna got her mither to watch her like oor Mary Ann has. Bless me! how the lassie glowers! Mary Ann has the biggest share o' manners onyways."
It must be confessed that Marjory was "glowering." She regarded the overdressed girl with aversion, answered her mincingly-spoken "How do you do, Marjory?" very curtly, and continued to "glower," as Mrs. Smylie described it, without saying another word.
"Won't you come into the house?" asked Mary Ann, and Marjory went.
She did not care about these people; she had never liked Mary Ann, and could hardly bear to look at her now, or listen to her affected way of talking. Still, she did not wish to be rude, so she followed Mary Ann through the shop into the house, and was ushered into the sitting-room, or parlour as it was called. The room was like Mary Ann's dress--full of all sorts of bright colours and gaudy ornaments of poor quality.