‘Why, Laura, what do you mean?’ exclaimed Polly, completely dazed at this bombshell of candour. ‘I mean what I say; and I should have said it before if I could ever have found a chance. Because I didn’t mention it at the time, you needn’t suppose I’ve forgotten your getting me into trouble with Mrs. Winship, the day before the Howards came.’ ‘That was not my fault,’ said Polly, hotly. ‘I didn’t speak any louder than the other girls, and I didn’t know Aunt Truth objected to Mrs. Pinkerton, and I didn’t know she was anywhere near.’ ‘You roared like the bull of Bashan—that’s what you did. Perhaps you can’t help your voice, but anybody in the cañon could have heard you; and Mrs. Winship hasn’t been the same to me since, and the boys don’t take the slightest notice of me lately.’ ‘You are entirely mistaken, Laura. Dr. and Mrs. Winship are just as lovely and cordial to you as they are to everybody else, and the boys do not feel well enough acquainted with you to “frolic” with you as they do with us.’ ‘It isn’t so, but you are not sensitive enough to see it; and I should never have been poisoned if it hadn’t been for you!’ ‘Oh, go on, do!’ said Polly, beginning to lose her self-control, which was never very great. ‘I didn’t know I was a Lucrezia Borgia in disguise. How did I poison you, pray?’ ‘I didn’t say you poisoned me; but you made me so uncomfortable that day, bringing down Mrs. Winship’s lecture on my head and getting my best friend abused, that I was glad to get away from the camp, and went out with Jack for that reason when I was too tired and warm; and you are always trying to cut me out with Bell and the boys.’ ‘That’s a perfectly—jet black—fib!’ cried Polly, who was now thoroughly angry; ‘and I don’t think it is very polite of you to attack the whole party, and say they haven’t been nice to you, when they’ve done everything in the world!’ ‘It isn’t your party any more than mine, is it? And if I don’t know how to be polite, I certainly shan’t ask _you_ for instruction; for I must know as much about the manners of good society as you do, inasmuch as I have certainly seen more of it!’ Polly sank into a camp-chair, too stunned for a moment to reply, while Laura, who had gone quite beyond the point where she knew or cared what she said, went on with a rush of words: ‘I mean to tell you, now that I am started, that anybody who isn’t blind can see why you toady to the Winships, who have money and social position, and why you are so anxious to keep everybody else from getting into their good graces; but they are so partial to you that they have given you an entirely false idea of yourself; and you might as well know that unless you keep yourself a little more in the background, and grow a little less bold and affected and independent, other people will not be quite as ready as the Winships to make a pet of a girl whose mother keeps a boarding-house.’