'You are making it no better,' said Gillian. 'The gentlemen I am
used to know how to behave properly to any woman or girl. My father
would be very sorry that my brother has been thrown into such
company.'

And she walked away with her head extremely high, having certainly
given Master Stebbing a good lesson. Fergus ran after her. 'Gill,
Gill, you won't tell.'

'I don't think I ever was more shocked in my life,' returned Gillian.

'But, Gill, she's a nasty, stuck-up, conceited little ape, that Maura
White, or whatever her ridiculous name is. They pretend her father
was an officer, but he was really a bad cousin of old Mr. White's
that ran away; and her mother is not a lady---a great fat disgusting
woman, half a nigger; and Mr. White let her brother and sister be in
the marble works out of charity, because they have no father, and she
hasn't any business to be at the High School.'

'White, did you say? Maura White!' exclaimed Gillian. 'Captain
White dead! Oh, Fergus! it must be Captain White. He was in the
dear old Royal Wardours, and papa thought so much of him! To think
of your going and treating his daughter in that shocking way!'

'It was what Stebbing said,' gruffly answered Fergus.

'If you let yourself be led by these horrid cads---'

'He is no such thing! He is the crack bat of Edgar's---'