"Good heavens," cried the girl, her big blue eyes opening wide with injured innocence, "how could I help it? They're both in love with me. I don't care a rap for either one of them, but they got to fighting, and I couldn't stop them. I threw a pitcher of water on them, but they kept right on. I'd have called the police, but there was none to call. It wasn't my fault."
"But my dear Blanche," pleaded Barbara, "can't you see that you are bringing scandal and disgrace into the colony?"
"It's not me!" the pretty lips pouted. "It's these old women who are talking. Let them shut their mouths and attend to their own business. I'm not bothering them."
"You deny the accusations they bring against your good name?" Barbara said, with some surprise.
"Of course I deny them," she snapped. "I've got to have some fun, haven't I? I can't help it that a dozen boys come to see me and nobody ever sees the old tabbies who lie about me, can I? I can't help it that they are old and ugly, can I?"
Barbara had ceased to listen to the glib tongue, whose lying chatter tired her. She looked about the room with increasing amazement. It was stuffed with presents of every conceivable description. Costly rugs adorned the floor. Soft pillows filled the couch by the window. Dainty and expensive works of art adorned her mantel, and the richest and most beautiful underwear lay in a smoothly laundered pile on her luxuriant bed.
"And how did you get all these costly and beautiful things, my dear?" Barbara asked, with a touch of sarcasm.
The big blue eyes opened wide again with wonder.
"Why, the boys who are in love with me gave them. Why shouldn't they? I can't help it that they are foolish, can I? God made them so."
"And you accepted these rich and costly things in perfect innocence of the evil meaning others might put on them?"