I'm sure her kindness is great, for she takes
infinite trouble to make Janet producible! Poor Janet, you know
dressing her is like hanging clothes on a wooden peg, and a peg that
won't stand still, and has curious theories of the beautiful, carried
out in a still more curious way. So when, in terror of our aunt, the
whole female household have done their best to turn out Miss Janet
respectable, between this house and Kencroft, she contrives to give
herself some twitch, or else is seized with an idea of the
picturesque, which sets every one wondering that I let her go about
such a figure. Then Ellen and Jessie put a tie here, and a pin
there, and reduce the chaotic mass to order."
It was not long before Janet appeared, and Jessie with her, the
latter having been set down to give a message. The two girls were
dressed in the same light black-and-white checked silk of early
youth, one with pink ribbons and the other with blue; but the
contrast was the more apparent, for one was fresh and crisp, while
the other was flattened and tumbled; one said everything had been
delightful, the other that it had all been very stupid, and the
expression made even more difference than the complexion, in one so
fair, fresh, and rosy, in the other so sallow and muddled.
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