“Nor I, nor I,” chimed in two or three other voices.  But Eva Nelson was silent.

CHAPTER II.

“You are the most ridiculous girl for getting fancies into your head, Eva; and you never get things right,—­never!”

“I think you are very unkind.”

“Well, you can think so. I think—­”

“Hush!” in a warning voice; “there’s some one knocking at the door;” then, louder, “Come in;” and responsive to this invitation, Janey Miller entered.

“What were you and Eva squabbling about?” she asked, looking at Alice.

“Cordelia Burr!” replied Alice, disdainfully.

“Cordelia Burr?”

“Yes.  What do you think?  Eva wants to take her up and be intimate with her.”

“Now, Alice, I don’t,” cried Eva.  “I only wanted to be kinder to her.  When Miss Vincent told us that story yesterday, I couldn’t help thinking of Cordelia, and that we might be on the wrong track with her, as those horrid girls were with Miss Vincent.”

“‘Those horrid girls’!  What does she mean, Alice?” asked Janey.

Alice repeated Miss Vincent’s story.  “And Eva,” she went on, “has got it into her head that Cordelia is like what Miss Vincent was, and that we are like those horrid girls.”

“Not like them; not as bad as they were, yet; but we might be if we kept on, maybe.”

“But it isn’t the same thing at all, Eva,” struck in Janey.  “That sweet, pretty Miss Vincent could never have been anything like Cordelia; and we—­I’m sure none of us have been like those horrid girls.  I don’t like Cordelia, but I don’t say anything hateful to her, and none of us girls do.”

“But you—­we don’t want her ’round with us, and we show it.  We won’t dance with her if we can help it, and we’ve managed to keep her out of things that we were in, a good many times.”

“Well, nobody wants a person ’round with them who makes herself so disagreeable as Cordelia does; and as for dancing with her, she’s never in step, and is always treading upon you and bumping against you; and in everything else it’s just the same.”

“Maybe she’s shy, as Miss Vincent was.”

“Shy!  Cordelia Burr shy!” shouted Alice, in derision.

“No; she’s anything but shy,” said Janey; “she’s as uppish and independent as she can be.”

“But maybe she puts that on.  Maybe—­”

“Maybe she’s a princess in disguise!” cried Alice, scornfully.

“Well, I don’t care.  I think we ought to try and see if perhaps we are not on the wrong track with her; and I—­”

“Now, Eva,” and Alice looked up very determinedly, “if you begin to take notice of Cordelia, there’ll be no getting away from her; she’ll be pushing herself in where she isn’t wanted, constantly.  And there’s just one thing more:  I’ll say, if you do begin this, you’ll have to do it alone.  I won’t have anything to do with it; and, you’ll see, the rest of the girls won’t; and you’ll be left to yourself with Miss Cordelia, and a nice time you’ll have of it.”