“That’s so,” assented a number of voices in accord.
“And, as far as I can see, there’s nothing against her except her back-country bringing up and her funny way of talking. Why, dear me, dialect is all the fashion in stories; what makes us despise it so in real life?”
“Mary Ann is getting over her dialect very fast,” said Addie Mason. “I don’t think she talks very differently from the rest of us now.”
“No, she does not,” said Lily; “and that makes it all the worse for me to have written that stuff; and she doesn’t eat with her knife any more, either.”
“I think the one who put that poetry on Mrs. Abbott’s desk was fifty times worse than you,” said Bell Burgoyne.
“So do I,” said several who were brave enough to condemn the action, although it was generally supposed to be Edna who did it.
Her face grew very dark now.
“It’s a great row about nothing,” she said, “and I don’t think girls who are born ladies ought to be expected to associate with such vulgar folks.”
“I say again that Mary Ann is not vulgar; and look here, girls, let’s rechristen her. Half the trouble is in that absurd name, Mary Ann Stubbs; but we can change her first name to Marion!”
The girls, who were honestly ashamed of the passive or active parts they had taken on many occasions in persecuting poor Mary Ann, received the proposal with applause, and by general consent the old name was dropped, and soon both teachers and scholars said “Marion”—all but Edna; she could not be persuaded to say any thing but Mary Ann, and, as a general thing, she took the trouble to use the last name too, pronouncing Stubbs with a scornful emphasis that was very bitter in its wearer’s ears.