indulgently, "Miss de Sor, I have nothing to do with it."

"Nothing to do with it? No prizes to win before you leave
school?"

"I won all the prizes years ago."

"But there are recitations. Surely you recite?"

Harmless words in themselves, pursuing the same smooth course of
flattery as before--but with what a different result! Emily's
face reddened with anger the moment they were spoken. Having
already irritated Alban Morris, unlucky Francine, by a second
mischievous interposition of accident, had succeeded in making
Emily smart next. "Who has told you," she burst out; "I insist on
knowing!"

"Nobod y has told me anything!" Francine declared piteously.

"Nobody has told you how I have been insulted?"

"No, indeed! Oh, Miss Brown, who could insult _you?_"

In a man, the sense of injury does sometimes submit to the
discipline of silence. In a woman--never. Suddenly reminded of
her past wrongs (by the pardonable error of a polite
schoolfellow), Emily committed the startling inconsistency of
appealing to the sympathies of Francine!

"Would you believe it? I have been forbidden to recite--I, the