opportunity of being disagreeable.

Dora flushed at Tilly's words, but she answered coolly,--

"Persecuting! I don't call it persecuting to avoid a person one doesn't
want to know."

"Yes; but how does Agnes avoid her? She stiffens herself up and curls
her lips when the girl goes by, as if there was something contaminating
about her; and one night when we were in the music-room and Miss Smith
was playing and singing 'Mrs. Brady' for us, Agnes came in with Amy and
made a great fuss and noise, disturbing everybody in pretending to hunt
up one of her own music-books; and when I asked her to be quieter, she
said something horrid about 'low common songs,' and 'Mrs. Brady' isn't
a low common song; and the other morning, when Pete, the little dog, ran
up to her on the piazza, she pushed him away from her in such a
disagreeable manner--and so it has gone on every day, and I think it's a
shame, and such a nice girl as Miss Smith is too. I told grandmother all
about it,--the whole story,--and she says it is Agnes who is vulgar and
not Miss Smith, and that she never would have brought me here if she had
known that a girl who could behave like that was to be in the house; and
you can tell Miss Agnes Brendon this, if you like, and you can tell her
too that she'll only make us stand by Miss Smith stancher than ever by
persecuting her as she does."

"I shall tell her nothing of the kind, and there's no such thing as
persecution anyway,--that's ridiculous. Agnes is very exclusive,--the
Brendons all are,--and she doesn't like to make acquaintances with
common people, that's all."