“So Clara Jenkins said that about me?”
I nodded. “Just let it fall, you know, Miss Prudence, in the give-and-take of conversation.”
“If you weren’t a stranger in our neighbourhood, you wouldn’t pay any attention to what a girl like that says.”
“Oh, but it was about you,” I protested.
Prudence looked at me as if she were thinking that I might have been amusing when I was young.
“What was the word Clara used?” she asked.
“There were two words. ‘Calculating’ was one.”
“Oh, was it?”
“Yes. The other was ‘heartless.’ ”
“I like that! It’s only what mamma tells me.”