"Brother Lancaster, Sister Yvette Quick, when did you guys return to the country?" Julie Sampton, looking excited to see long-lost friends, walked over and wrapped her arm around Thomas Lancaster’s, just like Jane Sampson used to do when she was little, "How co you told only Jane, without telling ? We’re all girls from the Sampton Family, you’re so biased."
Thomas Lancaster was startled by the sudden appearance of Julie Sampton and quickly regained his composure, withdrawing his hand and taking a step backward, his face imdiately hardening, "Julie Sampton, I don’t have a younger sister as big as you, so stop calling ’brother’ this and ’brother’ that. I don’t recognize you as such."
"You’re really shaless," Yvette Quick was not as polite as Thomas Lancaster.
She pushed past Alexander Forest and Peter Gingery, stepping directly in front of Julie Sampton, "Why should we tell you when we ca back? And ’girls from the Sampton Family’? Who do you think we are? Should we be ingratiating ourselves with a girl from the minor Sampton branch? Jane Sampson is all of our little sister, but what are you, Julie Sampton, supposed to be?"
"Even if Jane Sampson is a girl from your Sampton Family, she’s still our granddaughter-in-law at the Black Family, and my brother’s wife. She’s part of the Black Family. Although she shares the sa surna, there’s still a distinction between the noble and the common," said Peter Gingery, speaking as though he were a Crown Prince, his every word dripping with scorn and ridicule toward Julie Sampton for overestimating herself.
"I didn’t an anything else..." Julie Sampton’s face was red and she clenched her teeth as she explained, "I was just happy to see you all back, and a bit sad too. You ca back and didn’t tell , making feel left out as if we weren’t friends from our childhood."
"Why should we tell you?" Yvette Quick sneered, raising her hand to slap Julie Sampton’s face, not lightly, the gesture full of humiliation, not trying to hide it at all, "Don’t flatter yourself, who played with a selfish ghost like you when they were kids? We were never friends, okay?"
In Yvette Quick’s words, Julie Sampton was purely courting disgrace by coming over.
Julie Sampton couldn’t possibly be unaware that their whole circle detested her. With her there, who could possibly catch up with her?
Thinking they were friends? Talking more than a few words with Julie Sampton felt like losing status.
"Get lost, don’t stand there being an eyesore," said Yvette Quick, waving her hand, "If you keep hanging around here, I’ll have the boss co out and kick you out."
Julie Sampton knew Yvette Quick ant what she said. She raised her hand to touch her face where Yvette had struck her, looking at Thomas Lancaster with a hurt expression, hoping he might speak up for her, but Thomas just pretended not to see and continued talking to Jane beside him.
It took Julie Sampton a few seconds to gather herself before she bit her lip and turned to leave.
Yvette Quick’s group was one she had always tried to fit into from a young age but was consistently excluded from.
Why could Jane Sampson, a foster daughter with unknown parents, be as close as real siblings with these second-generation officials, while she, Julie Sampton, the true daughter of the Sampton Family, was ostracized by them?
If it weren’t for Jane Sampson taking her place, if Jane hadn’t monopolized the life that belonged to her, if she had grown up inside the great courtyard and known them since childhood, then she, Julie Sampton, would be the one now cherished by Yvette Quick and the others!
Jane Sampson stole her parents, the Sampton Family’s wealth, the good life that should have been hers, and even the childhood and playmates that were rightfully hers.
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