‘Oh, papa! yes; but he can never see anything amiss in a Mohun; I heard her say so. And he wants me to be friends with you; dear, darling friends like him and your Uncle Claude, Mysie, so you must be, and not be always after that Dolores.’
‘I want to be friends with both. One can have two friends.’
‘No! no! no! not two best friends. And you are my best friend, Mysie, ever so much better than Alberta Fitzhugh, if only you’ll come always to me this little time when I’m here, and sit by me instead of that Dolly.’
‘I do love you very much, Fly.’
‘And you’ll sit by me at the penny reading to-night?’
‘I promised Dolly. But she may sit on the other side.’
‘No,’ said Phyllis, with jealous perverseness. ‘I don’t care if that Dolly is to be on the other side, you’ll talk to nobody but her! Now, Mysie, I had been writing to ask daddy to let you come home with me, you yourself, to the Butterfly’s Ball, but if you won’t sit by me, you may stay with your dear Dolores.’
‘Oh, Fly! When you know I promised, and there is the other side.’
But Fly had been courted enough by all the cousinhood to have become exacting and displeased at having any rival to the honour of her hand—so she pouted and said, ‘I don’t care about it, if you have her. I shall sit between Val and Jasper.’
One must be thirteen, with a dash of the sentiment of a budding friendship, to enter into all that ‘sitting by’ involves; and in Mysie’s case, here was her compassionate promise standing not only between her and the avowed preference of one so charming as Fly, but possibly depriving her of the chances of the wonders of the Butterfly’s Ball. No wonder that disconsolate tears came into her eyes as she uttered another pleading, ‘Oh, Fly, how can you?’