“Your mother is—wonderful, Nan,” she said finally. “No wonder you—you’ve got so much sense.”
“Have I?” asked Nancy, unwilling to take that sort of compliment. “No one, not any of my friends, ever say things like that to me; I’m so flighty,” she admitted quite frankly.
“But you’re not scrappy like I am,” spoke Rosa. “I just wonder why I love to—oppose folks.” This little sentence sounded tragic from Rosa’s lips. Her round, dimpily face fell into serious lines as she expressed this query, and even her baby-blue eyes looked far away where they could see nothing.
“You’re not scrappy,” Nancy felt bound to defend. “Maybe you just imagine folks are opposing you,” she hazarded.
“I know they are,” insisted Rosa sadly.
CHAPTER X
MAROONED AT NIGHTFALL
It was Nancy who now felt guilty—guilty of arousing in Rosa that queer little spirit of rebellion which seemed to rule her budding life.
“But, Rosa,” she argued, quite helplessly, for Nancy had no illusion about her own weaknesses, “don’t you think, maybe, you just imagine a lot of things?”
“Don’t you?” fired back Rosa.