“Is—is it Molly you have come to speak about?” asked Beth. “For if it is, I shall call her in. I would not discuss any friend in such a way as this.”
Maude laughed, but her pale eyes flashed. “Oh, no. It is your own affairs of which I wish to speak.”
“Thank you for your interest, Miss Grimshaw,” said Beth. “But I do not understand.”
“Well!” exclaimed the rather exasperated Maude. “You came up the river with another girl—a girl whom the madam has hired as maid. Isn’t that so?”
“Yes.”
“She’s a friend of yours, of course?”
“Cynthia? Certainly.”
“Then I presume—by that and other unmistakable marks—that you are not from very well-to-do people, Miss Baldwin?” demanded Maude, complacently.
“My father earns three dollars and seventy-five cents a day; my mother made my dresses; I expect to pay for a part of my tuition here by some work—of what kind I do not yet know.” Beth said it all defiantly, her black eyes flashing.
“Quite so,” Maude rejoined, as though all this was pleasing to her. “Very commendable on your part, I’m sure, too, Miss Baldwin. And I can show you how you may at once aid yourself—and nobody be the wiser.”