"Oh, yes, you told me," interrupted Emma, scornfully and angrily. "You are a great hand to preach, to be sure. If I have missed, and got some marks in school, I haven't done some other things. Have you found the red plant yet?"
Florry did not say another word. She turned and went away into the house, without telling Emma, as she had meant to do, of her intention not to go up without her.
"Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do?" she said to herself. "Oh, my heart will break! I am sure it will. If I could only die, or go clear away where nobody knows me. I wish father would let me go away to Colorado to Uncle John."
To do Emma justice, she had no intention of wounding her friend so deeply.
She was angry at herself for having failed, and at Florry for having succeeded, and her anger fell upon the first object that happened to present itself.
"What did you mean by what you said about the red plant?" asked Tilly Mansfield, who had heard Emma's words. "I heard your mother tell Emmeline that she had had a beautiful one, but that somebody stole it. You don't mean that Florry Lester took it, do you? Why, Emma Hausen!"
"Yes, she did; and I think it is a shame that such a girl should be put above me!" exclaimed Emma. "I am not a thief, whatever I am. I just wish Miss Van Ness and the rest knew it, that's all. I guess Miss Flora Lester would not hold her head so very high among the young ladies after that."
"I guess she wouldn't," said Tilly, who dearly loved a piece of gossip. "Why don't you tell them? I would. It would just pay Florry off finely. I dare say she would be turned out of the school."
"But I don't want to pay her off, that I know of," said Emma, struck by Tilly's words, and beginning to think when it was too late, as usual. "It was not her fault, and I am sorry I hurt her feelings. She was always telling me I would fail, if I didn't take more care; and she was right. If I had minded her, I should have done well enough. I wish I had."
"But did she really steal your mother's red plant?"