"How quiet Liane is this morning, not taking the least interest in anything we say!"
"No interest! Oh, Heaven!" thought Liane, but Dolly Dorr interposed:
"You would be quiet, too, if you had been beaten as Liane was by granny last night, and forced to seek refuge with a friend."
Liane crimsoned painfully at having her own troubles discussed, but granny's faults were public property, and she could not deny the truth.
"She is old and cross," she said, generously trying to offer some excuse.
"You need not take up for her, Liane. She doesn't deserve it!" cried one and all, while Mary Lang, the oldest and most staid of the six girls, quickly offered to share her own room with Liane if she would never return to the old woman.
She was an orphan, and rented a room with a widow, living cozily at what she called "room-keeping," and the girls had many jolly visits taking tea with Mary.
Liane thanked her warmly for her offer.
"But will you come?" asked Mary.
"I cannot."