The other girls looked reproachfully at her.
Then Olive said, “You have never liked your cousins, Fanny; and it does pain us all that you should speak against them at a moment like the present.”
“Then I will go away,” said Fanny. “I can see quite well that my presence is uncongenial to you all. I will find my own amusements. But I may as well state that if I am to be tortured and looked down on in the school, I shall write to Aunt Amelia and ask her to take me in until father writes to Mrs. Haddo about me. You must admit, all of you, that it has been a miserable time for me since the Vivians came to the school.”
“You have made it miserable yourself, Fanny,” was Susie’s retort.
Then Fanny got up and went away. A moment later she was joined by Martha West.
“Fanny, dear Fanny,” said Martha, “won’t you tell me what is changing you so completely?”
“There is nothing changing me,” said Fanny in some alarm. “What do you mean, Martha?”
“Oh, but you look so changed! You are not a bit what you used to be—so jolly, so bright, so—so very pretty. Now you have a careworn, anxious expression. I don’t understand you in the very least.”
“And I don’t want you to,” said Fanny. “You are all bewitched with regard to that tiresome girl; even I, your old and tried friend, have no chance against her influence. When I tell you I know her far better than any of you can possibly do, you don’t believe me. You suspect me of harboring unkind and jealous thoughts against her; as if I, Fanny Crawford, could be jealous of a nobody like Betty Vivian!”
“Fanny, you know perfectly well that Betty will never be a nobody. There is something in her which raises her altogether above the low standard to which you assign her. Oh, Fanny, what is the matter with you?”