The Mountain Girl by Emma Payne Erskine Chapter 25 Page 17

Laura lifted her eyebrows and glanced from her mother to her brother. “Very well, mamma, but one thing you might as well know now. I shan’t drop some of my friends — if being Lady Laura lifts me above them as high as the moon. I like them, and I don’t care.”

She whistled, and a beautiful, silken-haired setter crept from under the sofa whereon she had been sitting, and wriggled about after the manner of guilty dogs.

“Laura, dear!”

“Yes, mamma, I’ve been hiding him with my skirts by sitting there. He was bad and followed me in. We’ve been out riding together.” She stroked his silken coat with her riding crop. “Mamma won’t allow him in here, and he jolly well knows it. Bad Zip, bad, sir! Look at him. Isn’t