"I'm sure you look very nice," said Dora, politely. Amy echoed the polite remark, while Will, eying the three with an attempt at a critical estimate, thought to himself, "They don't look a bit nicer than that girl at the corner table."

But Will was too wise to give utterance to this thought. He knew how it would be received; he knew that the three would laugh at him and say, "What does a boy know about girl's clothes?"

In the mean time, while all this was going on, what was that girl who had suggested the talk, that girl who sat at the corner table in the dining room and who was now lying in a hammock,--what was she doing, what was she thinking?

CHAPTER II.

She was lying looking up through the green branches of the trees. She had been reading, but her book was now closed, and she was lying quietly looking up at the blue sky between the branches. Her thoughts were not quite so quiet as her position would seem to indicate. She had, as Will Wentworth had said, heard all that talk about the Pelhams. Whatever her cla.s.s in life, she was certainly a delicate and honorable young girl; for at the very first, when she found that it was a talk between a party of friends, and they were unconscious of a stranger's near neighborhood, she had done her best to make her presence known to them by various little coughs and ahems, and once or twice by decided movements, and readjustments of her position. As no attention was paid to these demonstrations, she finally concluded that none of the party cared whether they were overheard or not, and so settled herself comfortably back again into her place, and opened her book.

But she could not read much. These talkers were all about her own age, and if they did not care that a stranger was overhearing what they said, she need not trouble herself any more; and it was quite certain she found the talk amusing, for more than once a ripple of merriment would dimple her face, and the laughter would nearly break forth from her lips. Even at the last, when Agnes spoke so scornfully of the little yellow dog, the girl seemed to be more amused than annoyed; and she quite understood Miss Agnes's unfinished sentence, too, and Dora's little device to make it unfinished.

It was then only that she saw that her attempts to inform the party of her near neighborhood had been unsuccessful. She got rather red as this knowledge was forced upon her; then, like Will Wentworth, she burrowed down deeper than ever in the hammock, and gave way to a little burst of laughter, though, unlike Will's, hers was no noisy explosion.

All the time she was watching Will and the girls as they took their way across the lawn; and as soon as they disappeared from her view, she jumped from the hammock, and with the fleetest of fleet footsteps ran into the house. Coming down the long wide hall, she met the very person she was going in search of,--the person that Dora Robson had called "that stuffy old woman;" and trotting after her was the little yellow dog, who had just been washed and brushed until his short hair shone like satin.

"Oh, Pete, Pete, come here!" and Pete at this invitation flew to his young mistress's arms with much demonstration of delight.

"And they called you a vulgar plebeian dog, Pete, just think of that!"

cried the girl, as she fondled the little animal.

"Who called him that, Peggy?" asked her companion, in a surprised tone.

"One of those girls at the table by the window. Oh, auntie, I want to tell you about it. I was coming to find you on purpose to tell you.

Let's go in here, where we shall be all by ourselves," turning towards a small unoccupied reception-room.

There, cosily ensconced beside her aunt, with the little yellow dog at her feet, the dog's mistress told her story, with various exclamations and interjections of, "Now wasn't it horrid of them?" and "Did you ever know anything so ridiculous?" while auntie listened with great interest, her only comment at the end being,--

"Well, they're not worth minding, Peggy, and I wouldn't act as if I'd heard what they said when you meet them. I wouldn't take any notice of them."

"I? Why, it's they who won't take any notice of me, auntie. I'm like my little dog,--a vulgar plebeian. What would they say, what would they think, if they could hear you call me Peggy?--that's as bad as Pete, isn't it?"

"I'm afraid it is;" and auntie laughed a little as she spoke.

The great summer hotel was not nearly full yet, for it was only the last of June; and as Peggy went down to luncheon, her hand closely clasped in "auntie's," whom should she meet face to face in the rather deserted-looking hall but "those girls"? It was a little embarra.s.sing all round, and they all colored up very rosily as they met.

"I wonder where the boy is?" thought Peggy; "he and that New York girl were nice." She glanced over her shoulder at this thought. There was the boy; and--yes, he was standing at the office desk, carefully examining the hotel register. "He's looking for our names!" flashed into Peggy's mind, "and those girls set him up to it. I wonder what they'll say to 'Mrs. Smith and niece'? I know; they'll say, or the girl they call Agnes will say, 'Smith, of course! I knew they had some such common name as that.'"

Something very like this comment did take place when Master Will, in obedience to Dora Robson's request, brought the information that the people at the corner table were Mrs. Smith and her niece. But if Peggy could only have heard Will flash out upon this comment the further information that very distinguished people had borne the name of Smith,--could have heard him quote the famous English clergyman Sydney Smith, whose wit and humor were so charming,--if Peggy could have heard Will going on in this fashion, she would have thought he was very nice indeed, and been quite delighted with his independent outspokenness.

Agnes, however, was anything but delighted. She was, in fact, very angry with Will by this time, and what she called his meddlesome, domineering airs, and quite determined to let him know at the very first opportunity that she was not in the least to be influenced by his opinions.

The opportunity presented itself sooner than she expected. It was just after luncheon, and a couple of Indians had come up from their neighboring summer camp with a load of baskets for sale.

Dora and Tilly, with Mrs. Brendon and Agnes and Amy, went out to them at once. Others soon followed, and a brisk bargaining began. When the Indian woman held up a beautiful little basket skilfully woven to imitate sh.e.l.ls, there was a general exclamation of pleasure, and one voice cried out with enthusiasm, "Oh, how lovely!" and the owner of the voice reached forth to take the basket in her hand. Agnes Brendon, turning quickly, saw that it was Mrs. Smith's niece.

"The idea of that girl pushing herself forward like this!" was Agnes's whispered remark to Amy.

"Hush: she'll hear you," whispered back Amy.

"I don't care," answered Agnes, at the same time crowding herself to the front and inquiring the price of the basket, with the determination to get possession of it before any one else had a chance. But when the price--two dollars--was named, Mrs. Brendon p.r.o.nounced it exorbitant, and offered half the sum, never doubting its acceptance. The Indian woman, however, shook her head with an air of grim decision; and at that very moment, catching sight of Mrs. Smith and her niece, she nodded smilingly, repeated the price, and held the basket up again;

"Yes, yes, I'll take it," called out Peggy, nodding and smiling responsively; and the next instant the basket was in her hands.

Agnes, not only disappointed, but deeply mortified and angry, turned hastily to Dora Robson, and gave vent to her feelings by remarking in a perfectly clear undertone,--

"The worst of a place like this is that you meet such common people, with nothing to recommend them but their money."

Dora and Amy flushed with annoyance at this speech; but Tilly was so disgusted and indignant that she broke away from them all with an impatient exclamation, and started off across the lawn towards the house. Halfway across she met Will Wentworth, with Tom Raymond,--a great chum of his, who had just arrived by the noon boat.

"Hullo, what's up, what's the matter?" asked Will, as he perceived the expression of Tilly's face.

Tilly stopped, and in a few graphic words told her story, winding up with, "Wasn't it horrid of Agnes?"

"Horrid? It was beastly," sputtered Will. "_She_ to call people common!"

"But that girl is not common," said Tilly. "She may belong to people who have just made a lot of money,--for that's what Agnes meant to fling out,--but there isn't any vulgar common show of it. Look at her, how plainly she's dressed, and how quiet she is."

"Wonder what Agnes is up to now? Let's go and see," said Will, wheeling about and nodding to Tilly and Tom to follow.

As they came along together, Will a little ahead, Tom Raymond was quite silent until they approached the group collected around the Indians; then he suddenly e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, "Well, I never!"

"What? What do you mean?--what--who do you see?" asked Tilly, very much surprised at this outbreak.

"Is that the girl--the Smith girl you were telling about--there by the tree--holding a basket?" asked Tom.

"Yes; why--do you know her?"

"N-o--but--I was thinking--she doesn't look common, does she?"

"Of course she doesn't, only plainly dressed."

"Yes, that's all;" and Tom gave a little odd chuckling laugh.

"How queer Tom Raymond is!" thought Tilly. She thought he was queerer still, as she caught his furtive glances toward that Smith girl.

Presently Miss Tilly saw that the Smith girl was regarding Tom with rather a puzzled observation.

"I see how it is," reflected Miss Tilly; "they have met before somewhere, and Tom doesn't want to know her now. He thinks she isn't fine enough for this Boston set, though he owns that she doesn't look common. Oh, I do believe that Will Wentworth is the only one here who has any sense or heart."

As Tilly arrived at this conclusion of her reflections, Will came running up to her.

"Come," he said, "there's no fun here. Let's go and have a game of tennis."

"But where's Agnes? I thought you wanted to see what she was doing."

"She's gone off in a huff because I asked her if she'd bought any baskets," answered Will, grinning. Tilly laughed, and Tom Raymond gave another odd little chuckle. Then the three strolled away to the tennis ground. As they were pa.s.sing the rustic bench under the tree where Mrs.