much, but it was a good deal to us, and I couldn’t have anything new; and—­and there’s another thing—­one morning I overheard one of the girls say to Kitty Grant, ‘McVane Street, that is enough!’ They must have been talking about me and where I live.  Nobody else here lives on McVane Street, and we—­mother and I—­wouldn’t live there if we could afford to live where we liked; but we came here strangers, and this was much the most comfortable place we could find for what we could pay.  I know it’s in a disagreeable part of the city; but it isn’t bad, it isn’t low, where we are, it’s only run down and shabby.  But I thought Boston people were above judging others by such things.  I’d always heard that Boston girls—­”

“Boston girls! oh, don’t talk to me of Boston girls, don’t talk to me of any girls anywhere,” burst in Laura.  “I’m sick—­sick of girls.  Girls will do things and say things—­little, mean, petty things—­that boys would be ashamed to do or say.”

“Then you do think it’s because of my shabbiness and where I live that—­that has made them—­these girls so—­so different; but why should they—­all at once?  I can’t understand.”

“Don’t try to understand!  Don’t bother your head about them—­they don’t mean—­they don’t know—­they are not worth your notice.  You are a long, long way above them!”

“Mother didn’t want to come to Boston to live; but when my uncle John Wybern, mother’s brother, died three years ago,—­he died in Munich; he was an artist, like my father, and we’d all lived together, since my father’s death,—­we came on here, as uncle had advised, because he knew some one here in an importing-house who would get David a situation.  He didn’t want David to be an artist.  He said it was such an anxious, hand-to-mouth life, if one didn’t make a quick success of it; and he knew, for he hadn’t made a success any more than my father had,—­and—­and this is why we came here, and are here now on McVane Street, though my mother didn’t want to come.  But I wanted to come from the first.  I’d heard and read so much about Boston, I thought I was sure to be happy here, for I thought the people were so noble and high-minded, and—­” There was a pathetic little faltering break again at this, which was resolutely repressed, and the sentence resumed with, “and then I knew my father’s people had once—­” But at this point, “Esther,” called out Miss Milwood from the doorway, “bring the exercises into my room, and we’ll finish them together.”

Almost at that very moment Kitty Grant came running down the aisle, calling out, “Laura, Laura, are you going this afternoon to the Art Club?”

“To hear Monsieur Baudouin?  Yes.”

“Well, we’ll go together, then.”

“Very well.”

“Very well,” mimicking Laura’s cool tones; then with a change of voice, “Laura, what is the matter?  You are enough to freeze anybody.  What have I done?”