But Laura was temperamentally unable to accept so vague an invitation; and here the matter closed.
When, consequently, Miss Chapman summoned her one evening to tell her that she was to change her present bedroom for Evelyn's, the news came as a great shock to her.
"Change my room?" she echoed, in slow disgust. "Oh, I can't, Miss Chapman!"
"You've got to, Laura, if Mrs. Gurley says so," expostulated the kindly governess.
"But I won't! There MUST be some mistake. Just when I'm so comfortably settled, too.—Very well, then, Miss Chapman, I'll speak to Mrs. Gurley myself."
She carried out this threat, and, for daring to question orders, received the soundest snubbing she had had for many a long day.
That night she was very bitter about it all, and the more so because Mary and Cupid did not, to her thinking, show sufficient sympathy.
"I believe you're both glad I'm going. It's a beastly shame. Why must I always be odd man out?"
"Look here, Infant, don't adopt that tone, please," said Cupid magisterially. "Or you'll make us glad in earnest. People who are always up in arms about things are the greatest bores in the world."
So the following afternoon Laura wryly took up armfuls of her belongings, mounted a storey higher, and deposited them on the second bed in Evelyn's room.