"I know you don't, really, and that is just why I say it is a shame for Eva to say so!"
"To say what?" asked Amy, in a tone of irritation. "If you have anything to tell me, Dora, I wish you would speak it out, and have done with it!"
"Oh, well, if you want me to tell you, of course I can. Well, a certain person said to Eva the other day, 'I do wonder how you can make a friend of Amy Preston!' 'Oh!' said Miss Eva, contemptuously. 'Amy is a very cheap friend. She does not want as much as some people to keep her friendship!'"
"What did she mean by that?" asked Amy.
"Why, I suppose she meant that you, being poor, would be thankful for small favors. And then she laughed and said: 'We know what we are about. Amy gets what she wants, and I got what I want!' I suppose she gives you a great many presents, doesn't she?"
"No, indeed, she does not, because I will not take them!" replied Amy.
"Well, I am surprised!" said Dora. "I thought from what I have heard Eva say, that she more than half-clothed you. She gave you the dress you have on, didn't she? I understood her so."
"She never gave me a dress in the world!" exclaimed Amy, vehemently. "Nor anything else to wear. It is a likely story, indeed, that I should accept such presents from anybody."
"Well there, I didn't believe it!" said Dora. "I said all the time I didn't; but you see your dress being just like the one Eva wore last winter, people naturally believe the story. I don't see why Eva should tell every one, if she did give you an old dress. I always thought we were not to let our left hand know what our right hand did. Eva pretends to be such a Christian, too! I don't see how she can do so; though, for my part, I never can see that people who make great pretensions to religion air better than any one else."
If it had not been for that little imp of envy and jealousy which Amy had been nursing and potting under the pretty name of self-respect, she would never have given credit to a story so entirely inconsistent with what she had known of her friend's character. She would have seen through Dora at once, and treated her insinuations and stories with the contempt they deserved. But the jealous spirit was whispering in her ear that it was no more than was to be expected, or than she deserved for running after a girl so much richer than herself. She therefore answered angrily: