“And the same horrid mother,” said Mabel. “What shall we do?”
“Let’s not do anything,” counseled wise Jean. “Let’s wait and see if she recognizes us.”
“Perhaps anybody as grand as that,” offered Marjory, hopefully, “wouldn’t want to know plain blue serge folks like us. Of course we wouldn’t exactly want the Highland Hall girls to think she was an old friend of ours—”
“She wasn’t,” said Mabel, emphatically.
“Well,” argued Jean, “perhaps Laura has changed—certainly she has changed her name. It wouldn’t be quite fair or kind for us to tell the other girls the things we know about her. We can wait until we have her by herself before we seem to recognize her. And maybe she has improved—”
“She needed to,” said Marjory, sagely. “Shan’t we even tell Henrietta?”
“I don’t believe we need to,” returned Jean. “Henrietta won’t like her anyway. She’s too—well, too cheap. She isn’t Henrietta’s kind, you know.”
“The Milligans must have made money,” said Marjory. “They hadn’t any such clothes in Lakeville.”
“Lakeville would have dropped dead if they had,” giggled Bettie.
At first “Gladys” pretended not to recognize the little girls with whom she had once played in Lakeville; but, needing some one to show her the way to a class room, she waylaid Marjory in the hall and called her by name.