But Fly had been courted enough by all the cousinhood to have become exacting and displeased at having any rival to the honour of her hand--so she pouted and said, ‘I don’t care about it, if you have her. I shall sit between Val and Jasper.’ One must be thirteen, with a dash of the sentiment of a budding friendship, to enter into all that ‘sitting by’ involves; and in Mysie’s case, here was her compassionate promise standing not only between her and the avowed preference of one so charming as Fly, but possibly depriving her of the chances of the wonders of the Butterfly’s Ball. No wonder that disconsolate tears came into her eyes as she uttered another pleading, ‘Oh, Fly, how can you?’ ‘You must choose,’ said the offended young lady; ‘you can’t have us both.’ To which argument she stuck, being offended as well as scandalized at being set aside for such a culprit as Dolores, whose misdemeanours and discourtesy were equally shocking to her imagination. Mysie could confide her troubles to no one, for she was aware that caring about sitting together was treated by the elders as egregious folly; but a promise was a promise with her, and she held staunchly to her purpose, though between Dolores and Miss Vincent she lost all those delightful asides which enhanced the charms of the amusing parts of the penny reading and beguiled the duller ones--of which there were many, since it was more concert than penny reading, people being rather shy of committing themselves to reading--Hal, Mr. Pollock and the schoolmaster being the only volunteers in that line. Gillian had, sorely against the grain, to play a duet with Constance Hacket. The two young ladies had met one another with freezing civility in the classroom, and to those who understood matters, the stiffness of their necks and shoulders, as they sat at the piano, spoke unutterable things. But there had never been any real liking between Constance and the younger Merrifields, and the mother did not trouble herself much about this, knowing that the vexation of the elder sister, about whom she did care, would pass off with friendly intercourse.