"Oh, I know where they live," interrupted Ada, "and I knew they were factory people anyway, and you wouldn't want me going with girls like Alma."
"I'd want you to be kind to her, of course," returned Mrs. Singer.
"Then she'd have stuck to us if I had been. I guess you've forgotten the way it is at school."
Mrs. Singer sighed and opened her book wistfully. "You ought to be kind to everybody, Ada," she said vaguely, "but I really think I shall have to take you out of the public school. It is such a mixed crowd there. I should have done it long ago, only your father thinks there is no such education."
Ada saw that in another minute her mother would be buried again in her story. "But what shall I do about Frank and Lucy?" she asked, half crying.
"Why, is Frank in it, too?"
"Yes. I know Lucy has been talking to him. He came back and got her valentines."
"Oh, pshaw! Don't make a quarrel over it. Just be polite to Alma Driscoll. They're perfectly respectable people. You don't need to avoid her. Don't worry. Lucy will soon get over her little excitement, and you may be sure she will be glad to make up with you and be more friendly than ever."
Mrs. Singer began to read, and Ada saw it was useless to pursue the subject. She left the room undecidedly, her lips pressed together. All right, let Lucy befriend Alma. She wouldn't look at her, and they'd just see which would get tired of it first.
This hard little determination seemed to give Ada a good deal of comfort for the present, and she longed for to-morrow, to begin to show Lucy Berry what she had lost.