Pattie's face flamed.
"It's not true!" she said hotly. "I never got presents out of him, and I always meant to marry him——"
Jane sneered.
"Very likely!" she said, "he did well enough to play with, till a richer chap came along, and then you remembered Tom was poor! You're a mean thing, Pattie Paul!"
"Let me pass!" cried Pattie vehemently, "you've no right to say such things!"
"No right!" flared Jane, "and me seeing my own brother going thin and a-fretting for a worthless girl like you! No right!"
But Pattie stayed to hear no more. With a sudden turn of the mail-cart, she was past her enemy, and running swiftly down the pavement towards St. Olave's, while little Maud laughed and clapped her hands with delight; she thought the run was all to amuse her.
And Tom was going thin and fretting!
In the midst of her pride, anger and humiliation, that thought came back to Pattie over and over again.
But the anger and the pride predominated, and swept away all tenderer feelings, and she met Sam Willard in the evening with a laugh and a toss of the head, and wished that Jane were there to see.