A BRUSQUE young maid was Mary Agnes Whiting;
Her ways were rude, her manner sharp and curt.
She was constantly making nasty unpleasant remarks about people, for her tongue was rather biting;
And she didn't care a hang what she said, nor whose feelings were hurt.
In fact she was a regular Scrooge, was young Miss Mary,
And at parties and festivities, when the other girls were having a good time, she usually was bored.
And as for those polite little amenities that add so much to the pleasure of social intercourse, of them she was exceedingly chary;
She didn't believe in giving Christmas presents, and the birthdays of her nephews and nieces and other relations she invariably ignored.
Still, despite the fact that she never gave a present,
And her manner still left much to be desired,
I always thought that Mary was not nearly so unpleasant
As her younger sister, Genevieve Ruth, who was extremely popular and universally admired.
For Genevieve was one of those attentive creatures
Who are always bringing sunshine into someone's life,
And she used to think nothing of walking in uninvited on some poor family with a basket of hand-embroidered bedroom slippers, and a look of holy benevolence on her girlish features;
And she was constantly butting in whenever some honest, hard-working victim of her philanthropy happened to beat up his wife.
She was never known to forget an anniversary;
And she kept a card index of the dates upon which her friends' birthdays would fall;
And it used to be extremely annoying for someone whose acquaintance with her was merely slight and cursory
To wake up on the morning of his birthday and find in the mail a hand-painted calendar or some such thoughtful remembrance from Genevieve, and to realize that he had forgotten her birthday, and hadn't sent her anything at all.
But Christmas was the season in which Genevieve used to revel.
No one was too remote not to receive some tender token of the Yule;
And on Christmas morning several hundred people would receive a card or gift from Genevieve, which would naturally make them feel like the devil,
And they'd have to rush out immediately and send her something, just as though they had thought of her all the time, and I needn't tell you that that sort of thing always makes one feel like a silly fool.
And so, though Mary's wit would bite and blister,
And though her ways were frequently uncouth,
I much preferred her to her younger sister,
That sweet and amiable paragon of all virtues, Genevieve Ruth.
Her ways were rude, her manner sharp and curt.
She was constantly making nasty unpleasant remarks about people, for her tongue was rather biting;
And she didn't care a hang what she said, nor whose feelings were hurt.
In fact she was a regular Scrooge, was young Miss Mary,
And at parties and festivities, when the other girls were having a good time, she usually was bored.
And as for those polite little amenities that add so much to the pleasure of social intercourse, of them she was exceedingly chary;
She didn't believe in giving Christmas presents, and the birthdays of her nephews and nieces and other relations she invariably ignored.
Still, despite the fact that she never gave a present,
And her manner still left much to be desired,
I always thought that Mary was not nearly so unpleasant
As her younger sister, Genevieve Ruth, who was extremely popular and universally admired.
For Genevieve was one of those attentive creatures
Who are always bringing sunshine into someone's life,
And she used to think nothing of walking in uninvited on some poor family with a basket of hand-embroidered bedroom slippers, and a look of holy benevolence on her girlish features;
And she was constantly butting in whenever some honest, hard-working victim of her philanthropy happened to beat up his wife.
She was never known to forget an anniversary;
And she kept a card index of the dates upon which her friends' birthdays would fall;
And it used to be extremely annoying for someone whose acquaintance with her was merely slight and cursory
To wake up on the morning of his birthday and find in the mail a hand-painted calendar or some such thoughtful remembrance from Genevieve, and to realize that he had forgotten her birthday, and hadn't sent her anything at all.
But Christmas was the season in which Genevieve used to revel.
No one was too remote not to receive some tender token of the Yule;
And on Christmas morning several hundred people would receive a card or gift from Genevieve, which would naturally make them feel like the devil,
And they'd have to rush out immediately and send her something, just as though they had thought of her all the time, and I needn't tell you that that sort of thing always makes one feel like a silly fool.
And so, though Mary's wit would bite and blister,
And though her ways were frequently uncouth,
I much preferred her to her younger sister,
That sweet and amiable paragon of all virtues, Genevieve Ruth.
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