you can't help your voice, but anybody in the canyon could have heard
you; and Mrs. Winship hasn't been the same to me since, and the boys
don't take the slightest notice of me lately.'

'You are entirely mistaken, Laura. Dr. and Mrs. Winship are just as
lovely and cordial to you as they are to everybody else, and the boys
do not feel well enough acquainted with you to "frolic" with you as
they do with us.'

'It isn't so, but you are not sensitive enough to see it; and I
should never have been poisoned if it hadn't been for you!'

'Oh, go on, do!' said Polly, beginning to lose her self-control,
which was never very great. 'I didn't know I was a Lucrezia Borgia
in disguise. How did I poison you, pray?'

'I didn't say you poisoned me; but you made me so uncomfortable that
day, bringing down Mrs. Winship's lecture on my head and getting my
best friend abused, that I was glad to get away from the camp, and
went out with Jack for that reason when I was too tired and warm; and
you are always trying to cut me out with Bell and the boys.'

'That's a perfectly--jet black--fib!' cried Polly, who was now
thoroughly angry; 'and I don't think it is very polite of you to
attack the whole party, and say they haven't been nice to you, when
they've done everything in the world!'

'It isn't your party any more than mine, is it? And if I don't know
how to be polite, I certainly shan't ask YOU for instruction; for I
must know as much about the manners of good society as you do,