I'm ashamed of you, Wayne!" He was about to make laughing retort, but Katie's cheeks were so red, her eyes so bright, that he refrained and turned to Ann with: "Katie was always great for taking in all kinds of superfluous things." "Yes," said Ann, "I know." "And she always takes her outcasts so very seriously." "Yes," agreed Ann.
"The trouble is, she can't hope to make them over." "No," admitted Ann, "she can't do that." "And then she breaks her heart over their forlorn condition." "Yes," said Ann.
"These wretched things exist in the world, but Katie only makes her own life wretched in trying to do anything about them.

She can't reach far enough to count, so why make herself unhappy ?" "Katie doesn't look at it that way," replied Ann, and turned away.
After the others had gone Katie committed her new dog to Worth.

"Honey, will you play with him sometimes?
I know he's not as nice to play with as the puppies, but maybe that's because nobody ever did play with him.

The things that aren't nice about him aren't his fault, Worthie, so we mustn't be hard on him for them, must we?
The reason he's so queer acting is just because he never had anybody to love him." Worth was so impressed that he not only accepted the dog himself but volunteered to say a good word for him to Watts.
But a little later he brought back word that Watts said the newcomer was an ornery cur--that he was born an ornery cur--that he was meant to be an ornery cur, and never would be anything but an ornery cur.
"Watts is what you might call a conservative," said Katie.
And not being sure how a conservative member of the United States Army would treat a canine child of the alley, Katie went herself to the stable that night to see that the newcomer was fed and made to feel at home.
He did not appear to be feeling at all at home.

He was crouching in his comfortable corner just as dejectedly as he would crouch in the most miserable alley his native city afforded.
He came, thankfully but cringingly, out to see Katie.