"Miss Day knows—I don't," sauced Laura, and made her escape.
She did not let Miss Snodgrass's bad mark disturb her. No sooner had she begun her practising than she fell to work again on the theme that occupied all her leisure moments, and was threatening to assume the bulk of an early Victorian novel. But she now built at her top-heavy edifice for her own enjoyment; and the usual fate of the robust liar had overtaken her: she was beginning to believe in her own lies. Still she never ventured to relax her critical alertness, her careful surveillance of detail. For, just a day or two before, she had seen a quick flare-up of incredulity light Tilly's face, and oddly enough this had happened when she tried her audience with a fact, a simple little fact, an incident that had really occurred. She had killed the doubt, instantly, by smothering it with a fiction; but she could not forget that it had existed. It has very perplexing; for otherwise her hearers did not shy at a mortal thing; she could drive them where and how she chose.
At the present moment she was planning a great coup: nothing more or less than a frustrated attempt on her virtue. It was almost ready to be submitted to them—for she had read PAMELA with heartfelt interest during the holidays—and only a few connecting links were missing, with which to complete her own case.
Then, without the slightest warning, the blow fell.
It was a Sunday afternoon; the half-hour that preceded Sunday school. Laura, in company with several others, was in the garden, getting her Bible chapter by heart, when Maria called her.
"Laura! Come here. I want to tell you something."
Laura approached, her lips in busy motion. "What's up?"
"I say, chicken, your nose is going to be put out of joint."
"Mine? What do you mean?" queried Laura, and had a faint sense of impending disaster.
"What I say. M. Pidwall's asked to the you-know-who's next Saturday."