"
She sat on for some time darning and thinking. Her heart was full; she
felt depressed. She had been working in various ways ever since six
o'clock that morning, and the darning of the boys' rough socks hurt her
eyes and made her fingers ache.
Meanwhile Kathleen was running along the road. She ran until she was
completely out of breath. She then came to a stile, against which she
leant. By-and-by she saw a girl walking leisurely up the road; she was a
shabbily dressed and rather vulgar girl. Kathleen saw at once that she
was one of the Great Shirley girls, so she went forward and spoke to
her.
"You go to our school, don't you?" she said.
"Yes, miss," answered the girl, dropping a little curtsy when she saw
Kathleen. She was a very fresh foundation girl, and recognized something
in Kathleen which caused her to be more subservient than was necessary.
"Then, if you please," continued Kathleen, "can you tell me where that
sweetly pretty girl, Ruth Craven, lives?"
"She isn't a lady," said the girl, whose name was Susan Hopkins. "She is
no more a lady than I am."
"Indeed she is," said Kathleen. "She is a great deal more of a lady than
you are."
The girl flushed.
"You are a Great Shirley girl yourself," she said. "I saw you there
to-day. You are in an awfully low class. Do you like sitting with the
little kids? I saw you towering up in the middle of them like a
mountain."
Kathleen's eyes flashed.
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