“Now, listen,” warned Gladys, shifting her gum to the other side of her mouth. “Don’t let anybody hear you calling me Laura. It isn’t my name any more. I always hated that name and Milligan, too. Mother calls me Gladys—Gladys Evelyn de Milligan.”
“What’s the ‘D’ for,” asked honest Marjory.
“That’s French,” explained Laura. “It’s d e, de.”
“But Milligan isn’t French.”
“It’s more elegant that way,” explained Laura, shifting her gum again. “We’re society people now. It looks better in print when Mother’s ‘Among those present.’ Now listen. Now that you know my name, see that you remember it. And tell those other Lakeville girls they can do the same thing.”
Although the Miller girls’ father supplied the world with soap, although three continents ate the breakfast food that Hazel Benton’s uncle manufactured, no one at Highland Hall paraded her wealth and her so-called “Social standing” as vulgar little Gladys de Milligan paraded hers. She was always painted and powdered and overdressed; she was reckless with her spending money, snobbish and artificial to the very final degree; yet, fortunately for gum-chewing Laura, there were girls who seemed to like her.
Most of the girls, however, liked Victoria Webster much better. To be sure Victoria had her faults, but they were pleasanter faults than Laura’s. Every one of the youngsters admired and tried to imitate Victoria’s marvelously perfect wink. Maude came the nearest to achieving success; and little Lillian Thwaite failed the most dismally.
“Don’t try it on a cold day,” warned Victoria, “you might freeze that way, Lillian, with your mouth half way up your cheek and your nose in a knot.”
It was a joy to see Victoria and Maude play ball. They went at it precisely like a pair of boys. And Victoria shared Maude’s affection for pie.
Madame Bolande liked Gladys Evelyn de Milligan but sarcastic Miss Woodruff did not. When she called upon that young person in class, she frequently pretended that she had forgotten her name, so that one day, to the great amusement of her classmates, Laura would be called Ambrosia Nectarine and the next Miss Woodruff would address her as Verbena Heliotrope, Gladiolus Violet or Lucretia Calliopsis or something else equally ridiculous; but a new one for every occasion. This, of course, wasn’t exactly kind or even quite courteous; but it is safe to say that Gladys Evelyn began to regret having changed and embellished her plain if not beautiful name. Perhaps, before Miss Woodruff had entirely exhausted her supply of fancy names, poor Gladys Evelyn may have envied little Jane Pool. No one ever forgot or pretended to forget Jane’s very brief and very plain name, except Doctor Rhodes, who forgot everybody’s.