“No. I fancy I have very little standing in the premises, when it comes to the facts,” and Beth laughed again, though rather bitterly. “I mean on the side of Maude Grimshaw and her crowd.”
“Oh, them!” sniffed Molly, disgustedly, as well as ungrammatically. “What about Princess Fancyfoot?”
“She can claim to hold the welfare of Rivercliff quite as high as you and your friends do,” Beth said argumentatively. “She believes that the school is for a certain class of girls—and for no other. And, really, the girls themselves bear out her claim, don’t they? Am I not about the only poor girl here?”
“Well, I’m sure!” exclaimed Molly, “I’m not rich.”
“What! with seven aunts to support you?” laughed Beth, bound to keep a cheerful tone in all the argument.
“But that has nothing to do with it.”
“Yes it has. If I were Maude Grimshaw I should probably feel just as she does. I am an interloper. But I am here,” added Beth, with vigor, “and I mean to stay and get what I came to Rivercliff for.”
“Hurrah!” cried Molly. “Then you will fight ’em?”
“Fight? Certainly not. I have no reason to. I tell you, dear, that I was in the wrong—besides being in wrong! I should not have gone to Miss Dunn’s party. I tell you I am not one of you, and cannot be one of you, save in my standing in classes.”
“Oh, Beth! What do you mean?” wailed Molly.