"It was your own Laura that told stories if anybody did--and I guess somebody did, all right. Laura _never_ tells the truth; she doesn't know how to."

"I have implicit confidence in Laura," returned Mrs. Milligan, frowning at Mabel. "I believe every word she says."

"Well," retorted dauntless Mabel, "that's more than the rest of us do.

We kept count one day and she told seventy-two fibs that we _know_ of."

"Oh, Mabel, do hush," pleaded scandalized Bettie.

"Hush nothing," said Mabel, not to be deterred. "I'm only telling the truth. Laura took our handkerchiefs and then fibbed about it, and we've missed a dozen things since that she probably carried off and--"

"Mabel, Mabel!" warned Jean, pressing her hand over Mabel's too reckless lips. "Don't you know that we decided not to say a word about those other things? They didn't amount to anything, and we'd rather have peace than to make a fuss about them."

"I can see very plainly," said Mrs. Milligan, with cold disapproval, "that you're not at all the proper sort of children for my little Laura to play with. I forbid you to speak to her again; I don't care to have her associate with you. I can believe all she says about you, for I've never been treated so rudely in my life."

"Apologize, Mabel," whispered Jean, whose arm was still about the younger girl's neck.

"If I was rude," said candid Mabel, "I beg your pardon. I didn't _mean_ to be impolite, but every word I said about Laura was true."

"I shall not accept your apology," said Mrs. Milligan, rising to depart, "until you've sent a written apology to Laura and have retracted everything you've said about her, besides."

"It'll never be accepted then," said quick-tempered Mabel, "for we haven't done anything to apologize for."

"No, Mrs. Milligan," said Jean, in her even, pleasant voice. "No apology to Laura can ever come from us. We stood her just as long as we could, and then we turned her out just as kindly as anyone could have done it.

I told Mother all about it last night and she agreed that there wasn't anything else we _could_ have done."

"So did Mamma," said Bettie.

"So did Aunty Jane."

"Well," said Mrs. Milligan, pausing on the porch, "I'd thank you young gossips to keep your tongues and your hands off my children in the future."

Jean closed the door and the four girls looked at one another in silence. None of their own relatives were at all like Mrs. Milligan and they didn't know just what to make of their unpleasant experience. At last, Marjory gave a long sigh.

"Well," said she, "I came awfully near telling her when she forbade our playing with Laura that my Aunty Jane has forbidden _me_ to even speak to her poor abused Laura."

"As for me," said Mabel, with lofty scorn, "I don't _need_ to be forbidden."

"Come, girls," said Jean, "I'm sorry it had to happen, but I'm glad the matter's ended. Let's not talk about it any more. Let's have one of our own good old happy days--the kind we had before Laura came."

"I'll tell you what we'll do," said Bettie. "We'll each write out a bill of fare for Mr. Black's dinner party, and we'll see how many different things we can think of. In that way, we'll be sure not to forget anything."

"But the Milligans," breathed Marjory, promptly seeing through Bettie's tactful scheme.

The Milligan matter, however, was not by any means ended. It was true that the girls paid no further attention to Laura, but this did not deter that rather vindictive young person from annoying the little cottagers in every way that she possibly could, although she was afraid to work openly.

As Laura knew, the girls took great pride in their little garden.

Bettie's good-natured big brother Rob had offered to take care of their tiny lawn, and he kept it smooth and even. The round pansy bed daily yielded handfuls of great purple, white, or golden blossoms; the thrifty nasturtiums were beginning to bloom with creditable freedom; and many of the different, prettily foliaged little plants in the long bed near the Milligans' fence were opening their first curious, many-colored flowers.

Some of the vegetables were positively getting radishes and carrots on their roots, as Bettie put it. The pride of the vegetable garden, however, was a huge, rampant vine that threatened to take possession of the entire yard. There was just the one plant; no one knew where the seed came from or how it had managed to get itself planted, but there it was, close beside the back fence. For want of a better name, the girls called it "The Accident," and they expected wonderful things from it when the great yellow trumpet-shaped flowers should give place to fruit, although they didn't know in the least what kind of crop to look for.

But this made it all the more delightful.

"Perhaps it'll be pumpkins," said Jean. "I guess I'd better hunt up a recipe for pumpkin pie, so's to be ready when the time comes."

"Or those funny, pale green squashes that are scalloped all around the edge like a dish," said Marjory.

"Or cucumbers," said Bettie. "I took Mrs. Crane a leaf, one day, and she said it _might_ be cucumbers."

"Or watermelons," said Mabel. "Um-m! wouldn't it be grand if it should happen to be watermelons?"

"What I'm wondering is," said Jean, "whether there's any danger of the vine's going around the house and taking possession of the front yard, too. I could almost believe that this was a seedling of Jack's beanstalk except that it runs on the ground instead of up."

"If it tries to go around the corner," laughed Bettie, "we'll train it up the back of the house. Wouldn't it be fun to have pumpkins, or squashes, or cucumbers, or melons, or maybe all of them at once, growing on our roof?"

The day after Mrs. Milligan's visit, Laura, who was not invited to the party, and who found time heavy on her hands, watched the girls, after stopping for Marjory, set out in their pretty summer dresses to spend the afternoon at a young friend's house. Laura gazed after them enviously. There was no reason why she should have been invited, for she had never met the little girl who was giving the party, but she didn't think of that. Instead, she foolishly laid the unintentional slight at the little cottagers' door.

Mrs. Milligan was sewing on the doorstep and had given Laura a dish-towel to hem. Saying something about hunting for a thimble, Laura went to the kitchen, took the bread-knife from the table drawer, stole quietly out of the back door, and slipped between the bars of the back fence. Reaching the splendid vine that the girls loved so dearly, she parted the huge, rough leaves until she found the spot where the vine started from the ground. First looking about cautiously to make certain that no one was in sight, spiteful Laura drew the knife back and forth across the thick stem until, with a sudden, sharp crack, the sturdy vine parted from its root.

Two minutes later, Laura, looking the picture of propriety, sat on the Milligans' doorstep hemming her dish-towel.

Of course, when the girls made their next daily excursion about their garden they were almost broken-hearted at finding their beloved vine flat on the ground, all withered and dead.

"Oh," mourned Marjory, "now we'll never know _what_ 'The Accident' was going to bear, pumpkins or squashes or--"

"Yes," said Mabel, who was blinking hard to keep the tears back, "that's the hardest part of it, it was cut off in its p-prime--Oh, dear, I guess I'm g-going to cry."

"What _could_ have done it?" asked Bettie, who was not far from following Mabel's example. "Has anyone stepped on it?"

"Perhaps a potato bug ate it off," suggested Jean.

"A two-legged potato bug, I guess," said Marjory, who had been examining the ground carefully. "See, here are small sharp heel prints close to the root."

"Whose handkerchief is this?" asked Mabel, picking up a small tightly crumpled ball and unrolling it gingerly. "There's a name on it but my eyes are so teary I can't make it out."

"It looks like Milligan," said Bettie, turning it over, "but we can't tell how long it's been here."

"Horrid as she is," said charitable Jean, "it doesn't seem as if even Laura would do such a mean thing. I can't believe it of her."

"_I_ can," said Mabel. "If _she_ had a squash vine, or a pumpkin vine, I'd go straight over and spoil it this minute."

"No, no," said Jean, "we mustn't be horrid just because other folks are.

We won't pay any attention to her--we'll just be patient."

The girls found four small, green, egglike objects growing on the withered vine; they cut them off and these, too, were laid tenderly away in their treasure boxes.

"When we get old," said Mabel, tearfully, "we'll take 'em out and tell our grandchildren all about 'The Accident.'"

But even this prospect did not quite console the girls for the loss of their treasure.

For the next few days, Laura remained contented with doing on the sly whatever she could to annoy the girls. One evening, when the girls had gone home for the night and while her mother was away from home, Laura threw a brick at one of the cottage windows, breaking a pane of glass.