"Which is more than you deserve," said a girl who, in passing by, chanced to hear the remark. "I wouldn't have anything to do with a story-teller like you."
Ella's colour flushed into her cheeks, leaving her afterwards so white that Gertie was frightened.
"Don't you mind what she says," whispered she; "disagreeable little cat—that's what I call her!"
With this, Gertie glanced angrily at the retreating figure of the offender.
But Ella was now sobbing bitterly. "Sometimes I think," said she, "I can't bear it much longer."
Could Ella but have known it, her trouble was nearly at an end. That same afternoon in school Gertie was strangely unlike herself. Several times she glanced in Ella's direction, and to her imagination the child she had so cruelly wronged, seemed as if she were slowly pining away.
She pictured her breaking down beneath the load of false accusation; she even went further, and thought of her as cold and still in death.
"Mother and the rest would cover her little coffin with flowers," mused she with a strangled sob; "but I couldn't put any there, because I gave her only thorns in her lifetime."
At this juncture, to the surprise of everybody, Gertie Snowden leaned her head on the desk, and burst into a passion of tears. Ella, for the moment utterly forgetful of school discipline, went straight out of her seat and asked her eagerly what was the matter.
"Aren't you well, Gertie?" she cried.