“Your father is very much to blame, Hester. He should have looked after your interests better when he saw the crash coming. There was no need that you should be left absolutely penniless.”
Hester sprang to her feet and confronted Miss Ware like a young tigress. “You shall not say such things about Dad. I will not listen—I—”
“Hoighty toighty!” broke in Miss Ware, “what a temper! You will have to curb that, my dear Hester, if you expect to get on in the world—as cooks!”
The girl flushed crimson, and bit her lip in an effort to regain her self-control.
“I—I beg your pardon,” she faltered. “I—I never knew I had a temper before. It’s—it’s one of the new things I am learning.” A sudden mist came before her, and drawing near she laid her hand on the older woman with an appealing touch. “Don’t say unkind things about Daddy, please, Miss Ware; they are not true, and I—I can’t bear it.”
“Let’s get to business,” said Miss Ware, who dreaded a scene above everything. “What do you mean to charge for your cake?”
“Fifty cents.” Hester was now quite herself again, and went on rapidly, “I want to ask you if you will speak about our work to your friends. I know it is asking a great deal under the circumstances, but we are such strangers here in Radnor we really do not know any one to ask such a favor of but you and Dr. Ware.”
“At least you have a champion in him.”
Hester’s eyes shone. “Next to Dad we love him better than any one in the world.”
“Then why don’t you behave sensibly, and come here and live, and let me take you about in society, as I meant to do this winter? I really looked forward to chaperoning you and Julie—you’re very unusual girls. Now give up this nonsense of yours and behave properly.”