“Oh, Margaret dear, don’t!” said Olive. “You’ll have heaps of troubles in life, for my mother says that no one yet was exempt from them. There never was a woman quite like my darling mother—except, indeed, Mrs. Haddo. Mother has quite peculiar ideas with regard to bringing up girls. She says the aim of her life is to give me a very happy childhood and early youth. She thinks that such a life will make me all the stronger to withstand temptation.”
“Let us hope so, anyhow,” said Fanny. Then she added, “Don’t suppose I am grumbling, although it has been a trial father going away—so very far away—to India. But I think the real temptation comes to us in this way: when we have to meet girls we can’t tolerate.”
“Now she’s going to say something dreadful!” thought Olive to herself.
Margaret rose as though she would put an end to the colloquy.
Fanny was watching Margaret’s face. “The girl I am specially thinking of now,” she said, “is Sibyl Ray.”
“Oh!” said Margaret. She gave a sigh of such undoubted relief that Fanny was certain she had guessed what her first thoughts were.
“And now I will tell you why I don’t like Sibyl,” Fanny continued. “I have nothing whatever to say against her. I have never heard of her doing anything underhand or what we might call low-down or ill-bred. At the same time, I do dislike Sibyl, just for the simple reason that she is not well-bred, and she never will be.”
“Oh! oh, give her her chance—do!” said Olive.
“I am not going to interfere with her,” remarked Fanny; “but she can never be a friend of mine. There are some girls who like her very well. There’s Martha West, who is constantly with her.”