“Yes, Martha, I know—­it isn’t that I feel inferior in—­in myself,” Angela exclaimed; “but the Selwyns have always had money and everything—­always, and we are poor and have lived so out of the way that I say it’s beautiful and kind of Marian, when she knows me so little.  Why, Martha, I never see her anywhere but on the street and at Sunday-school.”

“Well, she likes you, I suppose.  She’s taken a fancy to you, and she’s independent enough, I should hope, to invite any girl she likes, if the girl is poor and lives out of the way,” was Martha’s cool reply.

Liked her!  Taken a fancy to her!  How Angela’s heart jumped at this suggestion!  Could it be possible that this lovely fortunate Marian Selwyn, that she had always admired from afar off, had taken a fancy to her,—­poor, plain little Angela Jocelyn,—­was her thought.  And it was with this thought quickening her pulses that she wrote a cordial acceptance to the note of invitation; and it was this thought that sent such a bright look into her face that morning, that Mary Marcy said to her friend and seat-mate, Anna Richards, “Look at Angela Jocelyn, she is really growing pretty;” and a little later at the recess that followed directly after a recitation where Angela had easily led, as usual, Mary, catching sight of the frowning faces of Lizzy and Nelly Ryder, exclaimed:  “Anna, if Angela Jocelyn is going to add good looks to her braininess, those Ryder girls will be more jealous of her than ever.”

“And they pretend to look down on Angela because she is poor and her mother and sister take in sewing,” responded Anna.

“All the same they don’t look down on what Angela really is.  She is superior to them in brains, and they know it, and that makes them want to pull her down,” answered Mary.

“Yes, I heard Nelly Ryder say last week that Angela was altogether too conceited, and ought to be ‘taken down’; and it would be just like Nelly Ryder to try to do it sometime.”

“Sometime!  I believe she is trying to do it now.  I believe that that is the mischief she and her cousin Lizzy are planning this moment,” cried Mary.

“What do you mean?”

“I’ll tell you;” and Mary related, as she had related to her mother, what she had seen and heard.

“Nelly Ryder has never forgiven Angela for getting the history prize; Nelly thought herself sure of it,—­she as good as told me so,” was Anna’s only remark upon this.

“And now she’s going to play some trick on Angela to take her down, as she calls it; that’s what you think, isn’t it?  And that’s what I think.  Oh, Anna, I wish I could ferret out the mischief and stop it.  It will be something hateful and mortifying to poor Angela, I know.  If I could only get some clew to what it is, so as to warn her.”

“Yes; but as we are not sure that there is any mischief, after all, you mustn’t say anything to anybody yet.”