“I don’t want to play eavesdropper again,” she told herself, grimly. “I always understood that listeners hear no good of themselves, and now I know it to be a fact.”
Gregson stood at the bottom of the last flight. His face was as wooden as ever, but he managed to open his lips far enough to observe:
“Luncheon is served in the breakfast room, Miss.”
A sweep of his arm pointed the way. Then she saw old Lawdor pottering in and out of a room into which she had not yet looked.
It proved to be a sunny, small dining-room. When alone the family usually ate here, Helen discovered. The real dining-room was big enough for a dancing floor, with an enormous table, preposterously heavy furniture all around the four sides of the room, and an air of gloom that would have removed, before the food appeared, even, all trace of a healthy appetite.
When Helen entered the brighter apartment her three cousins were already before her. The noise she made coming along the hall, despite the heavy carpets, had quite prepared them for her appearance.
Belle and Hortense met her with covert smiles. And they watched their younger sister to see what impression the girl from Sunset Ranch made upon Flossie.
“And this is Flossie; is it?” cried Helen, going boisterously into the room and heading full tilt around the table for the amazed Flossie. “Why, you look like a smart young’un! And you’re only fourteen? Well, I never!”
She seized Flossie by both hands, in spite of that young lady’s desire to keep them free.
“Goodness me! Keep your paws off—do!” ejaculated Flossie, in great disgust. “And let me tell you, if I am only fourteen I’m ’most as big as you are and I know a whole lot more.”