Found Treasure (Musaicum Romance Classics). Grace Livingston Hill

      “Now Father, I’m not so sure,” said the mother. “You know Eleanor didn’t get it up. The girls invited her, and they didn’t ask Effie.”

      “Well they should have! They asked for the car, didn’t they?”

      “Well, but that didn’t make it necessary for them to ask all of the children, and Effie has never been in that crowd.”

      “Well, if she wants to go now I think she has a right!” declared the father.

      “No, not unless she has made herself welcome. I’m afraid it is Effie’s own fault that she is not invited.”

      “Well, Mother, you look into the matter and see if there can’t be something done for Euphemia. I can’t have my sister’s namesake turning out a failure in life, and that’s what she’ll be if something isn’t done for her. I’m afraid I will never forget her face when she said she didn’t know what she was born for anyway, and that she had found out there wasn’t any place in the world where she was wanted. That’s a pretty serious thing for a girl to get into her head, I think.”

      “It isn’t likely that she really meant all that,” said her mother. “She was just angry. She’ll likely have forgotten it all by to-morrow. I never heard her say anything like that before. She usually doesn’t care in the least what people think about her. She is utterly independent and goes her own way, no matter what anybody says. She is more like a boy than a girl.”

      “I can’t think that, Mother,” said Effie’s father, shaking his head. “There was a real depth to her tones. You look into it and see if you can’t get at the inwardness of this thing. Somebody must have done something pretty ugly to her to make her look as she did at the dinner table to-night.”

      But the next morning Effie came swinging downstairs, whistling in loud piercing tones and waking the baby, who had had a bad night with two teeth he was cutting and had just dropped off to sleep. Both Father and Mother looked at her with stern eyes and sharp reproofs. Indeed, to the newly awakened Effie their words were so unjust and cutting that she slammed out of the back door without her breakfast and, jumping on her bicycle, rode off into the country and spent a furious two hours pedaling away and thinking hard thoughts of her parents, her sisters, all the girls in town, and her world in general, finally working off the surplus fury and coasting back down the hills toward home another way around, whistling to keep up her courage. No one should know how hard she was hit and how much she cared that no one loved her. Let them all be hateful to her if they would. She could stand it, and she would see if she could not beat them all in spite of everything. Maybe if she got her dress fixed up they would think more of her. Now that she thought about it, everybody was always loving and nice to Nell when she had a new dress on. Nell could get anything out of her father when she was dressed up. Dress must make a great difference in this world. She had always scorned it as among the necessary bothers of living. Now she began to see that it might be a desirable accessory. At least she would try it.

      She rode into the yard with grim determination upon her face, skirted the driveway, and entered by way of the kitchen. She secured a few crackers, an orange, and some cake and stole up the back stairs to her room, where she set herself to examine her wardrobe and see what could be done with it.