“Oh, pshaw, Bess! you don’t mean that,” returned Nan.
“Yes, I do—so now! I won’t remain to be insulted by these girls! My mother won’t want me to. I shall write her——”
“You wouldn’t?” cried Nan, in horror.
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“You don’t mean to say you would trouble and worry your mother about such a thing, just as soon as you get here?”
“We—ell!”
“I wouldn’t do that for anything,” Nan urged. “And, besides, I don’t think the girls meant any real harm.”
“That homely, red-headed Polk girl is just as mean as she can be!”
“But she has to take jokes herself about her red hair.”
“I don’t care!” grumbled Bess. “She has no right to play such mean tricks on me. Why did she tell me to take that horrid old lunch box in to supper?”