"Was that it?" returned Edna; "but you know they said we mustn't make friends with strange children."
"Didn't you make friends with Maggie Horn? Answer me that, miss," exclaimed Louis, triumphantly.
Edna was silent. She didn't exactly see the way clear to defend herself, although she knew there was a difference somewhere.
"Maggie Horn is nothing but a dirty little street child," continued Louis; "and I haven't the least doubt but that she tells stories and steals and all that, while Phil Blaney lives in a nice house, and—and—"
"As if that made him good," answered Edna, scornfully. "I just know that he is a great deal worse than Maggie, for she never had anyone to teach her, and Phil has had, so he is much worse."
"He is not," replied Louis, fiercely.
"He is, he is," contradicted Edna, "and you are a horrid, disagreeable boy to talk so about Maggie; I am not going to play with you, so there," and picking up her doll, she stalked away.
"Yah! yah! 'I don't want to play in your yard,'" sang Louis after her.
Edna was very angry, the more so that she did not know how to defend Maggie. It was quite likely, she thought, that Maggie might do all sorts of wrong things, and it was also quite true that she had, herself, made friends with a strange girl. She could not puzzle it out, and she went down stairs to the sitting-room where Uncle Justus was. She sat down on a hassock by the fire, looking very thoughtful. Once or twice she glanced up at her uncle.
After a while he noticed the questioning look on her face. "What is it, little girl?" he asked.