“I—I wondered,” whispered Mellicent breathlessly, “if you did it on purpose! Did you _mean_ to spoil her dress and make her change it?”
Peggy’s hands dropped to her side, her back straightened until she stood stiff and straight as a poker. Every atom of expression seemed to die out of her face. Her voice had a deadly quiet in its intonation.
“I—I thought perhaps you did! She teased you, and you were so cross. You seemed to be standing so very near her, and you are jealous of her—and she looked so lovely! I thought perhaps you did....”
“Mellicent Asplin,” said Peggy quietly, and her voice was like the keen east wind that blows from the icy-covered mountains, “Mellicent Asplin, my name is Saville, and in my family we don’t condescend to mean and dishonourable tricks. I may not like Rosalind, but I would have given all I have in the world sooner than this should have happened. I was trying to do you a service, but you forget that. You forget many things! I have been jealous of Rosalind, because when she arrived, you and your sister forgot that I was alone and far away from everyone belonging to me, and were so much engrossed with her that you left me alone to amuse myself as best I might. You were pleased enough to have me when no one else was there, but you left me the moment someone appeared who was richer and grander than I. I wouldn’t have treated _you_ like that if our positions had been reversed. If I dislike Rosalind, it is your fault as much as hers; more than hers, for it was you who made me dread her coming!”
Peggy stopped, trembling and breathless. There was a moment’s silence in the room, and then Esther spoke in a slow, meditative fashion.
“It is quite true!” she said. “We _have_ left you alone, Peggy; but it is not quite so bad as you think. Really and truly we like you far the best, but—but Rosalind is such a change to us. Everything about her is so beautiful and so different, that she has always seemed the great excitement of our lives. I don’t know that I’m exactly fond of her, but I want to see her, and talk to her, and hear her speak; and she is only here for a short time in the year. It was because we looked upon you as really one of ourselves that we seemed to neglect you, but it was wrong all the same. As for your spoiling her dress on purpose, it’s ridiculous to think of it. How could you say such a thing, Mellicent, when Peggy was trying to help you, too? How _could_ you be so mean and horrid?”