"So I did. Her name was Eugenia Martha Smith."
But Phebe refused to be convinced.
"I don't believe one word of it, Isabel; and you needn't feel so smart, even if you do have a mother of your own. I used to have; and I know my stepmother will be nicer than your mother."
"How do you know?"
"She's prettier and she's younger. She gave me lots and lots of peaches, too, and your mother wouldn't let us have a single one, so there now."
"Do you know the reason why?" Isabel demanded, in hot indignation.
"No, I don't, and I don't believe she does," Phebe answered recklessly.
"She said, after you'd gone, that she'd have been willing to let you have one, but you were so deceitful, you'd have taken a dozen, as soon as her back was turned. Now what do you think?"
Even between the friends, quarrels had been known to occur before now, and one seemed imminent. An unexpected diversion intervened.
"Little girls," a solemn voice sounded in their ears; "do you know you are taking turnips that do not belong to you?"