“To what?” inquired Trixy.
“To—to Jean, of course.”
“I wouldn’t satisfy her to do anything of the sort,” sniffed Gloria.
“But don’t you see they are planning something?” asked Pat.
“Who cares?” retorted Gloria. “I’m getting sort of homesick, I guess, but I just would like a whole day away from—all this.” A suspicion of tears dimmed her eyes.
“You have been a perfect lamb, Glo,” declared Trixy, winding her arm about the younger girl’s shoulders in sympathy. “Never made a mite of trouble.”
“But you are sort of used to—to changing about, aren’t you, Glo?” asked Pat, quite innocently.
“Why, Pat, what do you mean?” demanded Gloria, sensing an undercurrent to the last remark.
“Oh, I don’t mean you have been to other schools, or that sort of thing,” returned Pat, brightening up in alarm at Gloria’s tone, “but you see, Hazel was—talkative, and she told everybody how you lived at her house, and about—your mother being dead and all that.” There was no mistaking Pat’s own sincerity.
“So that’s it!” A wave of understanding flooded over Gloria. “They think I lived on Hazel’s folks! Poor relation——” bitterly.