For days Laura avoided even thinking of this unlucky visit. Privately, she informed herself that Tilly's wealthy relations were a "rude, stupid lot"; and, stuffing her fingers in her ears, memorised pages with a dispatch that deadened thought. When, however, the first smart had passed and she was able to go back on what had happened, a soreness at her own failure was the abiding result: and this, though Tilly mercifully spared her the "dull as ditchwater", that was Bob's final verdict.--But the fact that the invitation was not repeated told Laura enough. Her hurt was not relieved by the knowledge that she had done nothing to deserve it. For she had never asked for Bob's notice or admiration, had never thought of him but as a handsome cousin of Tilly's who sat in a distant pew at St Stephen's-on-the-Hill; and the circumstance that, because he had singled her out approvingly, she was expected to worm herself into his favour, seemed to her of a monstrous injustice. But, all the same, had she possessed the power to captivate him, she would cheerfully have put her pride in her pocket. For, having once seen him close at hand, she knew how desirable he was. Having been the object of glances from those liquid eyes, of smiles from those blanched-almond teeth, she found it hard to dismiss them from her mind. How the other girls would have boasted of it, had they been chosen by such a one as Bob!--they who, for the most part, were satisfied with blotchy-faced, red-handed youths, whose lean wrists dangled from their retreating sleeves. But then, too, they would have known how to keep him. Oh, those lucky other girls! "I say, Chinky, what do you do when a boy's gone on you?" She would have shrunk from putting an open question of this kind to her intimates; but Chinky, could be trusted. For she garnered the few words Laura vouchsafed her, as gratefully as Lazarus his crumbs; and a mark of confidence, such as this, would sustain her for days. But she had no information to give. "Me? ... why, nothing. Boys are dirty, horrid, conceited creatures." In her heart Laura was at one with this judgment; but it was not to the point. "Yes, but s'pose one was awfully sweet on you and you rather liked him?" "Catch me! If one came bothering round me, I'd do this" and she set her ten outstretched fingers to her nose and waggled them. And yet Chinky was rather pretty, in her way. Maria Morell, cautiously tapped, threw back her head and roared with laughter. "Bless its little heart! Does it want to know?--say, Laura, who's your mash?" "No one," answered Laura stoutly. "I only asked. For I guess you KNOW, Maria."