"Well, no, you don't; but if you're so down on a fellow's having any fun, what's he to expect?"
"I'm not down on your having fun, but I think we ought to do just as well as we can while uncle and aunt are away; better even, for it seems sort of—sort of dishonest to do things behind people's backs that you wouldn't do before their faces."
"Do you mean to say I am dishonest?" began Louis, blustering.
"O, no," cried Edna; "but—but—"
"Humph! I don't believe you know what you do mean. Now, see here; my father and mother ain't wicked people, are they?"
"Of course not."
"Well, then, if they let me have boys to come in and play with me at home, why isn't it just as right here? Answer me that!"
Edna could not answer, so she got up and walked away, Louis calling after her, "You needn't have anything to do with it, Miss Goody-goody. I don't suppose the boys will insist upon your playing with them." And a moment after Edna heard him go out of the house.
About a half hour later she heard him return, a troop of boys following him. They clattered into the house and up into the schoolroom. Ellen, hearing the noise, went up, but, as might have been expected, the boys only jeered at her, and paid no attention to what she said.
"Masther Louis must study his lessons," she told them.