tarradiddles about people who'd been so nice to
you? What made you tell them?"

"I don't KNOW. They just came."

The girl's eyes smiled. "Well, I never! Poor little Kiddy," she said as
she turned away.

But this was the only kind word Laura heard. For many and many a night
after, she cried herself to sleep.

XIX.

Thus Laura went to Coventry.--Not that the social banishment she now
suffered was known by that name. To the majority of the girls Coventry
was just a word in the geography book, a place where ribbons were said
to be made, and where for a better-read few, some one had hung with
grooms and porters on a bridge; this detail, odd to say, making a
deeper impression on their young minds than the story of Lady Godiva,
which was looked upon merely as a naughty anecdote.

But, by whatever name it was known, Laura's ostracism was complete. She
had been sampled, tested, put on one side. And not the softest-hearted
could find an excuse for her behaviour.

It was but another instance of how misfortune dogs him who is down,
that Chinky should choose this very moment to bring further shame upon
her.

On one of the miserable days that were now the rule, when Laura would
have liked best to be a rabbit, hid deep in its burrow; as she was
going upstairs one afternoon, she met Jacob, the man-of-all-work,
coming down. He had a trunk on his shoulder. Throughout the day she had
been aware of a subdued excitement among the boarders; they had stood
about in groups, talking in low voices--talking about her, she
believed, from the glances that were thrown over shoulders at her as
she passed. She made herself as small as she could; but when tea-time
came, and then [P.192] supper, and Chinky had not appeared at either
meal, curiosity got the better of her, and she tried to pump one of the
younger girls.

Maria came up while she was speaking, and the child ran away; for the
little ones aped their elders in making Laura taboo.

"What, liar? You want to stuff us you don't know why she's gone?" said
Maria. "No, thank you, it's not good enough. You can't bamboozle us
this time."

"Sapphira up to her tricks again, is she?" threw in the inseparable
Kate, who had caught the last words. "No, by dad, we don't tell liars
what they know already.--So put that in your pipe and smoke it!"

Only bit by bit did Laura dig out their meaning: then, the horrible
truth lay bare. Chinky had been dismissed--privately because she was a
b