“‘Escutcheon,’ she means,” chuckled Neale, who was present as usual at study hour.
“Well, what is it?” begged Tess, plaintively.
“Why?” demanded Ruth, suddenly waking up. “That’s a hard word for a small girl, Tess.”
“It says here,” quoth Tess, “that ‘There was a blot upon his escutcheon.’”
“Oh, yes—sure,” drawled Neale, as Ruth hesitated. “That must mean a fancy vest, Tess. And he spilled soup on it—sure!”
“Now Neale! how horrid!” admonished Ruth, while Agnes giggled.
“I do think you are all awful mean to me,” wailed Tess. “You don’t tell me a thing. You’re almost as mean as Trix Severn was to me to-day. I don’t want to go to her father’s hotel, so there! Have we got to, Ruthie?”
“What did she do to you, Tess?” demanded Agnes, with a curiosity she could not quench. For, deep as the chasm had grown between her and her former chum, she could not ignore Trix.
“She just turned up her nose at me,” complained Tess, “when I went by; and I heard her say to some girl she was with: ‘There goes one of them now. They pushed their way into our party, and I s’pose we’ve got to entertain them.’ Now, did we push our way in, Ruthie?”
Ruth was angry. It was not often that she displayed indignation, so that when she did so, the other girls—and even Neale—were the more impressed.