They all, every girl of them, understood white lies, and practised them. They might also have forgiven her a lie of the good, plain, straightforward, thumping order. What they could not forgive, or get over, was the extraordinary circumstantiality of the fictions which with she had gulled them: to be able to invent lies with such proficiency meant that you had been born with a criminal bent.--And as a criminal she was accordingly treated. Even the grown-up girls heard a garbled version of the story. "Whyever did you do it?" one of them asked Laura curiously; it was a very pretty girl, called Evelyn, with twinkling brown eyes. "I don't know," said Laura abjectly; and this was almost true. "But I say! ... nasty tarradiddles about people who'd been so nice to you? What made you tell them?" "I don't KNOW. They just came." The girl's eyes smiled. "Well, I never! Poor little Kiddy," she said as she turned away. But this was the only kind word Laura heard. For many and many a night after, she cried herself to sleep. XIX. Thus Laura went to Coventry.--Not that the social banishment she now suffered was known by that name. To the majority of the girls Coventry was just a word in the geography book, a place where ribbons were said to be made, and where for a better-read few, some one had hung with grooms and porters on a bridge; this detail, odd to say, making a deeper impression on their young minds than the story of Lady Godiva, which was looked upon merely as a naughty anecdote. But, by whatever name it was known, Laura's ostracism was complete. She had been sampled, tested, put on one side. And not the softest-hearted could find an excuse for her behaviour. It was but another instance of how misfortune dogs him who is down, that Chinky should choose this very moment to bring further shame upon her. On one of the miserable days that were now the rule, when Laura would have liked best to be a rabbit, hid deep in its burrow; as she was going upstairs one afternoon, she met Jacob, the man-of-all-work, coming down. He had a trunk on his shoulder. Throughout the day she had been aware of a subdued excitement among the boarders; they had stood about in groups, talking in low voices--talking about her, she believed, from the glances that were thrown over shoulders at her as she passed. She made herself as small as she could; but when tea-time came, and then [P.192] supper, and Chinky had not appeared at either meal, curiosity got the better of her, and she tried to pump one of the younger girls. Maria came up while she was speaking, and the child ran away; for the little ones aped their elders in making Laura taboo. "What, liar? You want to stuff us you don't know why she's gone?" said Maria. "No, thank you, it's not good enough. You can't bamboozle us this time."