up tin cans and old rubbers and sells 'em and drinks just awful and got ten children and got arrested," I heard Delia recounting.
"The idea. To our picnic," said Margaret Amelia's thin-edged voice.
"Without asking us," Betty whispered, anx- ious to think of something of account to say.
Mary Elizabeth heard. I have seen that look of dumb, unresentful suffering in many a human face in the faces of those who, by the laws of sport or society or of jurisprudence, find no escape. She had no anger, and what she felt must have been long familiar. "I'd better go home," she said to me briefly.
I still had her by the hand. And it was, I am bound to confess, as no errant but chiefly as antagonist to the others that I pulled her along. "You got to come,” I reminded her. "You said you would."
It was cruel treatment, by way of kindness. The others, quickly adapting themselves, fell into the talk of expeditions, which is never quite the same as any other talk; and the only further notice that they took of Mary Elizabeth was painstakingly to leave her out. They never said anything to her, and when she ventured
