Betsy seated herself and her uncle put down his paper. “What is the matter with you and Elizabeth?” he asked. “I hear you are at odds again.”
“Who told you? We are not, whoever it was,” Betsy replied.
“But weren’t you?”
“Well, yes,” Betsy answered hesitatingly; “we were for a little while.”
“How did it happen?”
“Well, she overheard something Bess and I were saying and she pounced out at us and got awfully mad and called us mean, jealous, horrid things. Then she said Bess was fat and that we were both deceitful, so—” Betsy paused.
“So,”—repeated her uncle,—“there was a big row. What made her say you were all those things? Were you?”
Betsy looked down at her plate. “I believe we were a little.”
“What were you saying about her?”
Betsy was honest and did not hesitate to tell. “Bess said she was lazy and I said she liked to play with the boys better than with us girls.”