“Well, it is just this: Aneta is frightfully jealous of me.”
“Oh! I don’t believe it,” said Merry indignantly. “It isn’t in her nature to be jealous. It’s very low-minded to be jealous.”
“There is no school,” said Maggie, “where jealousy does not abound. There is no life into which jealousy does not enter. The world itself is made up of jealous people. Aneta is jealous of me, and I—I am jealous of her.”
“Oh, Maggie dear, you must not, and you ought not to be jealous of Aneta! She thinks so kindly, so sweetly of every one.”
“She loves you,” said Maggie. “You just go and tell her 111 how much you care for me, that you love me better than you love her, and see how she will take it.”
“But I wouldn’t tell her that,” said little Merry, “for it would hurt her.”
“There!” said Maggie with a laugh; “and yet you pretend that you don’t think her jealous.”
“She will never be jealous of me, for I’ll never give her cause—dear Aneta!” said Merry.
Maggie was again silent and thoughtful for a few minutes. “Listen to me, Merry,” she said. “In this school the girls follow the queens. If I wanted to make Aneta Lysle really mad with jealousy I’d get you over to me; but—don’t speak for a minute—I won’t get you over to me. You shall stay at school and be on Aneta’s side.”
“I suppose—I suppose I ought,” said Merry in a faint voice.