"Oh, she didn't know she was throwing the watah on me, when she pitched it out, but she was glad that it happened to hit me. She didn't even say 'excuse me,' let alone say that she was sorry. And she laughed and held on to her sides, and laughed again, and said, 'oh, what a joke,' and that it was the funniest thing that she evah saw. I think her mothah ought to know what bad mannahs she's got. Somebody ought to tell her. I told Fidelia what I thought of her, and I'll nevah speak to her again! So there!"
Mrs. Sherman listened sympathetically to her tale of woe, but as she unbuttoned the wet dress, and Lloyd still stormed on, she sighed as if to herself, "Poor Fidelia!"
"Why, mothah," said Lloyd, in an aggrieved tone, "I didn't s'pose that you'd take her part against me."
"Stop and think a minute, little daughter," said Mrs. Sherman, opening her trunk to take out another white dress. Lloyd was working herself up into a white heat. "Put yourself in Fidelia's place, and think how she has always been left to the care of servants, or of a governess who neglected her. Think how much help you have had in trying to control your temper, and how little you have had to provoke it. Suppose you had Howell and Henderson always tagging after you to tease and annoy you, and that I had always been too busy with my own affairs to take any interest in you, except to punish you when I was exasperated by the tales that you told of each other. Wouldn't that have made a difference in your manners?"
"Y-yes," acknowledged Lloyd, slowly. Then, after a moment's silence, she broke out again. "I might have forgiven her if only she hadn't laughed at me. Whenevah I think of that I want to shake her. If I live to be a hundred yeahs old, I can nevah think of Fidelia Sattawhite, without remembahin' the mean little way she laughed!"
"What kind of a memory are you leaving behind you?" suggested Mrs. Sherman, touching the little ring on Lloyd's finger that had been her talisman since the house party. "Will it be a Road of the Loving Heart?"
Lloyd hesitated. "No," she acknowledged, frankly. "Of co'se when I stop to think, I do want to leave that kind of a memory for everybody. I'd hate to think that when I died, there'd be even one person who had cause to say ugly things about me, even Fidelia. But just now, mothah, honestly when I remembah how she laughed, I feel that I must be as mean to her as she is to me. I can't help it."
Mrs. Sherman made no answer, but turned to her own dressing, and presently Lloyd kissed her, and went slowly down-stairs to find Hero. He was no longer dreaming in peace. Two restless boys cooped up in the narrow limits of the hotel, and burning with a desire to be amused, had discovered him through the crack of the door, and immediately pounced upon him.
"Aw, ain't he nice!" exclaimed Henny, stroking the shaggy back with a dirty little hand. Howl felt in his blouse, hoping to find some crumb left of the stock of provisions stored away at lunch-time.
"Feel there, Henny," he commanded, backing up to his little brother, and humping his shoulders. "Ain't that a cooky slipped around to the back of my blouse? Put your hand up and feel."