"Esther Bodn!"
"Yes, she asked me to fix a day this week when I could come, and I fixed Thursday,—to-morrow."
"But, Laura, can't you postpone it? Tell her how it is,—that mamma and papa are going away, and that Mary and Agnes are in New York, and I shall be all alone unless you come. Can't you do that, Laura?"
"I don't want to do that, Kitty."
"Oh, you'd rather go to that little Bodn girl's than to come to me!"
"I didn't say that, and I didn't mean that, Kitty. I meant that I didn't want to do what you asked, because it wouldn't be polite or kind."
"Well, it seems to me, Laura Brooks, that you are putting on very ceremonious airs all at once. Didn't you postpone until another day a visit to Amy Stanton last winter, for just such a reason as this,—that you might go to Annie Grainger's when her mother went to Baltimore,—and Amy never thought of its being impolite or unkind."
"But that was different, Kitty."
"Different? Show me where the difference is, please."
"Oh, Kitty, you know."