CITY COUSINS. 
293 
most inconveniently afraid of frogs, toads 
and snakes: every cow by the roadside was 
a furious bull, and every dog was either 
mad or spiteful. Antoinette even pretended 
to be afraid of Sidney’s pointer Sport, and 
of little Bruno, the Skye terrier, who on 
his part hated her with a perfect hatred. 
They looked down on their country- 
cousins and in their hearts regarded them 
as ignorant little savages. Annie’s thick 
shoes, calico frocks and gingham sun- 
bonnets were hideous in their eyes; and 
they wondered that any one so rich as their 
grandfather would allow his grandchildren 
to go looking so much “ like district-school¬ 
children.” Annie had once taken them out 
on one of their rambling excursions with 
Mr. Crediton; but their inconvenient fears, 
and the airs of exclusiveness they put on 
towards the other children, made her repent 
of it twenty times before they reached 
home ; and she quietly resolved never again 
to expose herself to such mortification upon 
their account. 
Besides these little incongruities, which 
perhaps were, after all, not very important, 
the Meredith girls—as Sidney impolitely 
