Page:Dorothy Canfield - Rough-hewn.djvu/343

 "No!" said Marise, as utterly at a loss as ever in her life. "How could I?"

"Because I hate myself so, because I hate my looks and my clothes and everything!" the other burst out passionately, "I feel like po' white trash. They had plenty of money! Why didn't they send me here befoah?"

"Before!" cried Marise. "Why, you're only a child now."

"I'm almost as old as you are," said the other. "I'm seventeen and you're eighteen."

She flung it out like a grievance.

"Eh bien!" cried Marise in great astonishment. She had not thought the other girl over fourteen.

She said now, sitting up straight and looking wistfully at Marise, "Will you be friends? You came of your own accord to be nice to me. Tell me about things. Everything! I want so like sin to know! I'll do anything to learn."

"Know what?" asked Marise, bewildered, looking about her, as if she might catch a glimpse of the things the other wanted to know.

"What they all know oveh heah … everything you know."

Marise drew back with an abrupt gesture, "No, indeed!" she cried, her face darkening, the words leaping out before she could stop them.

"Oh, I don't mean your secrets. I don't care about that. And I don't mean the way you play the piano, although I know some of the girls are envious of that. And I'd despise to have to study as hard as you-all in the upper classes do. I mean the right way to sit down and hold your hands and speak and weah clothes."

Marise began to laugh, "I don't know how to wear clothes. What do you want anyhow? You're, prettier than any girl in the school, and you are wearing a dress that cost more than anybody's else, and finer shoes than you could buy in all Paris."

"But they're not right," the girl said petulantly, "or else I don't weah them right, or something! I hate them! I have lots of money, but I don't know how to buy what I want."