"You're not going to be bothered with that Starr child, are you?" asked Lee pushing back her hair from a perspiring face. "I think it is too funny how Janet has always had a silly little freshman tagging after her ever since she became a soph."
"You can't call Polly silly," said Janet on the defensive, "and of course I shall invite Lillie to visit me when she was good enough to have me last Easter. Surely you haven't forgotten that."
Lee clashed a tray into a big trunk and sat down with a sigh of relief. "Of course I remember it," she said reproachfully, "and I think it is high time you told us about that, you provoking secretive creature."
"It is my last chance, isn't it?" said Janet putting her feet up comfortably on a low box. "Well, girls, I will satisfy your curiosity since it is positively our last evening together. The Starrs have the loveliest home imaginable; beautiful grounds and a most artistic interior. Mr. Starr is a man of fine parts, as they used to say, and Mrs. Starr is one of the most cultivated women I have met for some time. They were simply adorable and I was fêted and entertained without stint. I met several celebrities at their house. I was invited to dine with the governor and altogether I had a perfectly stunning time."
She paused and in a half embarrassed way said: "I don't suppose any of you ever knew that Mark, the perfect man, is a cousin of the Starrs and that he was their guest at the same time that I was."
"Janet Ferguson!" Lee flung down the box she was tying up. "The idea of your never telling us that before. I think that was horridly mean of you."
"Why?" asked Janet. "Are you specially interested in the information?"
"No,—yes, I mean," Lee replied. "I'd have been much nicer to him if I had known."
Janet laughed. "You little wretch. I believe you would, and yet you have always half despised Lillie."
"I haven't really," Lee told her, "but I liked to tease you because you had always been so sly and mum about that visit to her. I took the pains to inquire about her and knew she belonged to the four hundred."