CHAPTER XII.
MIRIAM PLANS A REVENGE For weeks Miriam Nesbit had felt a sullen resentment toward her brother, David, because he persisted in being friends with at least two of the girls in Oakdale High School whom she disliked most.
When he announced, one morning at breakfast, that he had been included in Mrs.Gray's house party, his sister suddenly burst into tears of passionate rage.
"Please don't cry, Miriam, old girl," said David, who was not of a quarrelsome disposition.

"I'm awfully sorry if I hurt you, but, you know, Mrs.Gray was one of my earliest sweethearts." Which was perfectly true.

When David was a little boy he used to crawl through the garden hedge and call on the charming old lady nearly every day.
David had hoped that Miriam would laugh at this, but she stormed all the more, while poor Mrs.Nesbit looked wretched.
"It isn't Mrs.Gray," sobbed Miriam.

"But to think that my own brother would associate with Grace Harlowe, who is always working against me, and that common little Pierson girl whose sister takes in sewing!" "Miriam, Miriam!" exclaimed Mrs.Nesbit, "I am shocked to hear you say such things.

Because the girl is poor she is not necessarily common.
Your grandfather was a poor man, too.