The other girls looked reproachfully at her.

Then Olive said, "You have never liked your cousins, Fanny; and it does
pain us all that you should speak against them at a moment like the
present."

"Then I will go away," said Fanny. "I can see quite well that my
presence is uncongenial to you all. I will find my own amusements. But I
may as well state that if I am to be tortured and looked down on in the
school, I shall write to Aunt Amelia and ask her to take me in until
father writes to Mrs. Haddo about me. You must admit, all of you, that
it has been a miserable time for me since the Vivians came to the
school."

"You have made it miserable yourself, Fanny," was Susie's retort.

Then Fanny got up and went away. A moment later she was joined by Martha
West.

"Fanny, dear Fanny," said Martha, "won't you tell me what is changing
you so completely?"

"There is nothing changing me," said Fanny in some alarm. "What do you
mean, Martha?"

"Oh, but you look so changed! You are not a bit what you used to be--so
jolly, so bright, so--so very pretty. Now you have a careworn, anxious
expression. I don't understand you in the very least."

"And I don't want you to," said Fanny. "You are all bewitched with
regard to that tiresome girl; even I, your old and tried friend, have no
chance against her influence. When I tell you I know her far better than
any of you can possibly do, you don't believe me. You suspect me of
harboring unkind and jealous thoughts against her; as if I, Fanny
Crawford, could be jealous of a nobody like Betty Vivian!"

"Fanny, you know perfectly well that Betty will never be a nobody. There
is something in her which raises her altogether above the low standard
to which you assign her. Oh, Fanny, what is the matter with you?"

"Please leave me alone, Martha. If you had spent the wretched night I
have spent you might look tired and worn out too. I was turned out of my
bedroom, to begin with, because Sister Helen required it."

"Well, surely there was no hardship in that?" said Martha. "I, for
instance, spent the night gladly with dear little Sylvia and Hester; we
all had a room together in the lower school. Do you think I grumbled?"

"Oh, of course you are a saint!" said Fanny with a sneer.

"I am not, but I think I am human; and just at present, for some
extraordinary reason, you are not."

"Well, you haven't heard the history of my woes. I had to share Miss
Symes's room with her."

"St. Ceci