"Come with me to-morrow morning, won't you?" asked Gay. "Mr. Carver has another load to get in and the boys would be glad to see you."
"I'm not sure of that," said Ned. "They are always firing stones at us Academy fellows."
"What did you Academy boys do first? Something, I'll bet."
"May, you must try not to use slang," murmured Miss Linn.
"Uncle George says slang is picturesque English," laughed mischievous Gay. "I try not to use it, for mother says she doesn't like too much of it, but it slips in. It's such handy stuff, you always find it when you want it, and sometimes when you don't, and that's more than you can say of proper words. But, Ned, what have the Academy fellows done?"
"We may have called them a name or two," admitted Ned.
"And they answered with a stone about as hard as your name. Well, I don't see much to choose between stones and names," said Gay.
"Perhaps not," said Ned. He was not insensible to Gay's reasoning, but he was not quite ready to admit its truth.
"I fear, Miss May," began the minister, endeavoring to speak pleasantly, although feeling an un-Christian desire to shake this terrible child, "I fear that your parents would not approve of your intimacy with these boys; they are uncultivated and otherwise undesirable acquaintances."
"Excuse me, sir," said Gay, with exasperating politeness, "you said you didn't know the boys; if you don't how do you know that they are uncultivated and undesirable?"