"Did you visit your grandmother at Bath?" inquired Ann.
"Yes, for ten days. The remainder of the holidays I spent at home."
"I wonder if you saw anything of Violet's people?" said Ann; "they live near you, do they not?"
"Fairly near. I saw Ruth and Madge Wyndham—I met them, in fact, but I didn't speak to them. They seemed to wish to avoid speaking to me, which was not surprising—considering all things." And Agnes smiled enigmatically.
"Considering all things?" echoed Ann; "I don't understand what you mean. I have heard, though, that you used not to get on well with Ruth Wyndham," she continued, with a touch of coldness in her tone, "Violet told me that."
"Did she?" Agnes looked slightly taken aback for a minute, then she went on: "We were never friends, certainly; we had nothing in common. The fact is, Ruth Wyndham is one of those reserved, proud sort of girls who make few friends. And what has she to be proud of, I should like to know? She is not bad looking, I admit; but she's always shabbily dressed, and I hear that, now she's left school, they make a regular drudge of her at home."
"How hard for her!" exclaimed Clara Garret, pityingly. "Are the Wyndhams so very poor, then, Ann? I did not know that."
"Oh, they are poor enough," Agnes returned quickly, though she was not the one addressed; "they live in a small villa and only keep one servant—I saw her cleaning the doorstep one day and she was such an untidy creature!—and Mrs. Wyndham wears gowns seasons old, and looks as though she had the cares of the world on her shoulders."
"Somehow I never thought of Violet Wyndham's people as poor," said Clara, her countenance showing plainly her great surprise.
"She looks flourishing, doesn't she?" said Agnes, with a sarcastic smile. "Look at her now! Hear her laughing!"