Shaw would not "allow her figure to
be spoiled." That suited Maud excellently; and whenever her father
spoke of sending her again, or getting a governess, she was seized
with bad headaches, a pain in her back, or weakness of the eyes, at
which Mr. Shaw laughed, but let her holiday go on. Nobody
seemed to care much for plain, pug-nosed little Maudie; her father
was busy, her mother nervous and sick, Fanny absorbed in her own
affairs, and Tom regarded her as most young men do their younger
sisters, as a person born for his amusement and convenience,
nothing more. Maud admired Tom with all her heart, and made a
little slave of herself to him, feeling well repaid if he merely said,
"Thank you, chicken," or did n't pinch her nose, or nip her ear, as
he had a way of doing, "just as if I was a doll, or a dog, and had n't
got any feelings," she sometimes said to Fanny, when some service
or sacrifice had been accepted without gratitude or respect. It
never occurred to Tom, when Maud sat watching him with her
face full of wistfulness, that she wanted to be petted as much as
ever he did in his neglected boyhood, or that when he called her
"Pug" before people, her little feelings were as deeply wounded as
his used to be, when the boys called him "Carrots.
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