"No," replied Eva, thoughtlessly.
"Just as true as you live?" repeated Dora.
"I don't know," said Eva, taking a second thought. "I always do tell mother everything."
"Then I shall not tell you!" returned Dora, tossing her head. "If you are such a baby as that, I shall never tell you anything. I should think you would be ashamed to run and tell m—a—a everything you hear."
And Dora tossed her head and laughed in a very ill-bred, disagreeable manner.
"Well, I am not ashamed, and I don't want any of your secrets, Dora Hayes," said Eva, coloring, but speaking very decidedly. "My mother is the best friend I have in the world, and I love her dearly, and I don't know who I should tell things to, if not to her. So you may keep your great secret to yourself."
"But this is something that somebody said about you," said Dora, seeing that she had made a mistake in laughing at Eva.
"So much the worse," returned Eva, boldly, though she felt her curiosity excited. "I don't want to know what people say about me, and you ought never to repeat conversation either. You know what the doctor said about that in catechism class only yesterday."
And Eva turned away, and sitting down at a distance, she occupied herself in learning her lesson till school began. A good many times in the course of the day, she found herself wondering what it was that Dora wanted to tell her; but she put the thought resolutely away. And by the next morning, she had almost forgotten the matter.
Eva's parents were among the richest people in the place. Eva herself was always prettily and fashionably dressed: she had plenty of pocket-money to spend, and she had been in vacation to Saratoga and Newport, and even to London and Paris with her parents.