“Now Maude’s exploded again,” said Stella, wearily. “Don’t follow her example please, Molly Granger.”
“Pshaw! she is not worth worrying about, Miss Baldwin,” declared another girl.
But a whisper went around the table. It had an echo, too, in Beth’s heart:
“What did Maude mean about Severn Lodge?”
CHAPTER XXIV
THE TRAITOR’S BLOW
Beth really had her heart and mind so full these days that there should not have been room for worry over anything that a girl like Maude Grimshaw could say. The fact remained, however, that Beth was disturbed by Maude’s innuendo.
Molly had asked: “What could that nasty thing mean, Beth, about Mrs. Severn?”
“I don’t know,” her chum honestly replied. “I can’t imagine.”
“Humph! just some of her spleen, I guess. She’s heard you weren’t working there any more on Saturdays and so just made something up out of whole cloth.”
So they passed it over. Molly evidently heard no more about it during the next week, for she did not broach the subject again to Beth. But the latter felt that there was a cabal of some nature against her among Maude’s “Me toos.”