been offered to her; and Miss Smith was listening to this apology with
the coolest little face imaginable.

Tom, taking all this in, gave another of his odd little chuckles. Agnes
heard it, and flushed scarlet. So he was taking sides with Will
Wentworth, was he? And what--what--was that--Tilly? Yes, it was
Tilly,--Tilly with the racket she, Agnes, had flung down,--Tilly
standing in her place and--and--serving the ball back to that girl! So
Tilly was with them too? Well, she would see, they would all see, that
Agnes Brendon was not a person to be snubbed and disregarded in this
fashion, nor a person to be forced to make acquaintances with vulgar or
common people against her will. Oh, they would see, they would see! And
bracing herself up with these indignant resolutions, Agnes betook
herself to the hotel.

Before the end of the week there were two distinct parties in the house,
where heretofore there had been but one,--two distinct opposing forces.

On one side were Agnes and Dora and Amy; on the other side were Tilly
and Tom and Will. Dora and Amy were not naturally ill-natured girls, but
they were inclined to be worldly and were greatly under Agnes's
influence. She had been a sort of authority with them for a good while,
perforce of her dominant disposition and the knowledge she seemed to
possess of the worldly matters that were of so much interest to them.

"But I should think you would feel ashamed to side with Agnes Brendon in
persecuting a poor little stranger," said honest Tilly, a day or two
after the tennis affair; for Agnes had at once set to work to carry out
her plan of showing that she was not to be forced, as she expressed it,
into making acquaintances she didn't like, and had thus lost no