"Are you in the blues, Gooseberry-bush?" was the sympathetic inquiry of Miss Marsh.
"Well, I am, rather. It's Miss Vivian, you know. She can be awfully down on one when she likes."
"I know; you always do seem to get on the wrong side of her. Grace will sympathize; she's just been abusing her like a pickpocket," said Miss Marsh, apparently believing herself to be speaking the truth.
Miss Jones raised her eyebrows rather protestingly, but said nothing. She supposed that in an atmosphere of adulation such as that which appeared to her to surround Miss Vivian, even such negative criticism as was implied in an absence of comment might be regarded seriously enough.
"But even if one doesn't like her awfully much, she has a sort of fascination, don't you think?" said Miss Plumtree eagerly. "I always feel like a—a sort of bird with a sort of snake, you know."
The modification which she wished to put into this trenchant comparison was successfully conveyed by the qualifying "sort of," an adverb distinctly in favour at the Hostel.
"I know what you mean exactly, dear," Miss Marsh assured her. "And of course she does work one fearfully hard. I sometimes think I shall have to leave."
"She works every bit as hard as we do—harder. I suppose you'll admit that, Gracie?"
"Oh yes."
"Don't go on like that," protested Miss Marsh, presumably with reference to some indefinable quality detected by her in these two simple monosyllables.