“ Don’t laugh at me, Tom!” she burst out angrily; “I’m not a stupid. I know a great many things you don’t.”
“ Oh, I dare say, Miss Spitfire! I’d never be such a cross thing as you, making faces like that. Lucy doesn’t do so. I like Lucy better than you; I wish Lucy was my sister.”
“ Then it’s very wicked and cruel of you to wish so,” said Maggie, starting up hurriedly from her place on the floor, and upsetting Tom’s wonderful pagoda. She really did not mean it, but the circumstantial evidence was against her, and Tom turned white with anger, but said nothing; he would have struck her, only he knew it was cowardly to strike a girl, and Tom Tulliver was quite determined he would never do anything cowardly.
Maggie stood in dismay and terror, while Tom got up from the floo
