You've heard of flowers that bloom
only in shelter and sunshine? This youngster isn't unlike--"
"Well, I never! No, I _never!... I never!_" Mrs. Budge's gasp, rising in
a crescendo, almost betrayed her presence. She gave a pillow a mighty
jab. As though it were not bad enough to bring the girl to the house in
the first place without paying a man a fancy price to teach her to have
her own way! "Flowers! Humph! Old fools--" Unable to endure another word
in silence she stalked off to her own quarters.
In the butler's pantry she found Beryl arranging real flowers in a
squatty Bristol glass bowl and humming gaily as she did so. Now Beryl
should have beep upstairs marking the new linen and she should not be
singing as though she owned the whole world. These two transgressions
and the sight of the bright blossoms in the girl's hand brought the
climax to the old woman's wrath. All Beryl's shortcomings tumbled off
her tongue in an incoherent flow of ill-temper. A stormy scene resulted
which left the old housekeeper spent and Beryl blazing with indignation.
Consequently, when poor Robin, depressed from her first hour with the
tutor, trying not to feel that Gray Manor was going to be a prison
instead of a castle, sought out her new friend she found her throwing
her few possessions into a cheap suitcase that lay, opened, across her
narrow bed.
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