Ruth, meanwhile, was trying to make a friend of Bella.
“What is your name, my dear?” she asked the lathlike girl.
“You heard it,” was the ungracious reply.
“Oh! Yes. ‘Bella.’ But your other name?”
“Arabella Montague Fitzmaurice Pike. My father is Montague Fitzmaurice.”
She said it proudly, with a lift of her tousled head and a straightening of her thin shoulders.
“Oh!” fairly gasped Ruth Fielding. “It—it sounds quite impressive, I must say. I guess you think a good deal of your father?”
“Aunt Suse don’t,” said the girl ungraciously. “My mother’s dead. And pa is resting this season. So I hafter stay here with Aunt Suse. I hate it!”
“Your father is—er—what is his business?” Ruth asked.
“He’s one of the profession.”