They
were quite a little coterie by themselves. It shaped itself to this more
and more.
Leslie did not neglect her own party. She drove and walked with Mrs.
Linceford, and was ready for anything the Haddens really wanted of her;
but Mrs. Linceford napped and lounged a good deal, and could spare her
then; and Jeannie and Elinor seemed somehow to feel the want of her less
than they had done,--Elinor unconsciously drawn away by new attraction,
Jeannie rather of a purpose.
I am afraid I cannot call it anything else but a little loss of caste
which seemed coming to Leslie Goldthwaite just now, through these new
intimacies of hers. "Something always gets crowded out." This, too,--her
popularity among the first,--might have to be, perhaps, one of the
somethings.
Now and then she felt it so,--perceived the shade of difference toward
her in the tone and manner of these young girls. I cannot say that it
did not hurt her a little. She had self-love, of course; yet, for all,
she was loyal to the more generous love,--to the truer self-respect.
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