“The caretaker—”
“A Mrs. Boyd, a pale little nonentity, but she darns in the most elegant fashion you ever saw. She had to bring her daughter you see, and the daughter is to be a teacher—is a sort of charity scholar, looks after the laggards in the evening, but she keeps her place pretty well. Of course she lives over on that side,” nodding her head.
“See here,” began Phillipa, “that girl has puzzled me with an elusive resemblance to somebody, Zay, it really is you. Her hair and eyes are darker, she’s larger every way, she is not such a peerless maid—”
“I shouldn’t feel complimented by that! Oh the idea! A girl from—well somewhere from the wild and woolly west—”
Much as Phillipa Rosewald loved her friends and she confessed to adoring Zaidee, she never stopped at a little fling.
“The compliment, of course, is to Miss Boyd. She has a temper of her own, you can catch a flash of it in her eyes, and I dare say her iron rule is what makes her mother so meek. She pets up that Nevins girl who is a—well they are called Beauty and the Beast. How she managed to slip in here puzzles me.”
“That girl is my horrid familiar, my bete noire. She has the room next to mine and you ought to see it. Miss Davis marked her down for untidyness, and Mrs. Barrington put her on a diet, her complexion was so horrid, but she manages to get a lot of sweets and chocolates. And the way she dresses! A modiste in New York sends her clothes and told her the color of one’s frocks must match the hair or the eyes, and no one could match those gray blue green eyes, so it has to be the hair.”
“I wouldn’t want that dull brown hair. I don’t suppose she ever brushes it. At home the maid looked after her. The mother is traveling for her health, and they are very rich.”
“Oh, is she making a confidante of you, too?” laughed May Gedney. “I thought it rather funny at first, I didn’t believe half she said, but her father is quite an important man in banking circles it seems, and there are diamonds galore, but he wouldn’t let her wear only that diamond birthday ring at school. She was wildly in love with Miss Boyd but the girl was too hard hearted to return it. She is a regular icicle and stony hearted and all that! Yes, her heart is irretrievably gone about the girl. They did have a kissing match one night but they don’t do it any more in public! I don’t know what they do in private, but the Boyd shut down on gifts which almost broke her heart, and she had spent two dollars for two orchids.”
“That certainly speaks well for Miss Boyd,” Zay exclaimed.