Poor child! she thought she had struggled long and fiercely with herself; she had yet to learn that the battle was but just begun.
CHAPTER VII.
AUNT BETTIE.
"Oh, dear!" yawned Grace Minton, "how I do hate stormy Saturdays!"
"So do I!" exclaimed Georgie Graham; "they are a perfect nuisance, and we were going up to Aunt Bettie's this afternoon."
"Who's we?"
"Oh, 'her royal highness' for one, and your humble servant for another; Sarah Brown, Flo Stevenson, and Rachel Drayton, of course. By the way, how terribly intimate those two have grown! I don't believe 'her highness' relishes their being so dreadfully thick."
"What in the world makes you call Marion 'her highness'?" said Grace.
"Oh, because she is so high and mighty; she walks round here sometimes as if she were queen and we her subjects."