"Well," she went on with a change of tone, "will you tell John I am here, and want to speak to him?"
Again she could almost see her father gazing at her with noble reproach.
"I will tell him," he said with magnificent rhythm and throb in his voice, "I will tell him, my child, that you are here——"
Then, knowing that he would add "God bless you," she snatched the receiver from her ear and held it against her hip so as not to hear the words.
During the morning Caroline Breeze came in to see how her recent travelling companion felt after their journey. The summer winds and sun that had been so kind to Griselda, painting her delicate face with mellow brown and dusky crimson, had attacked poor Caroline's plain old countenance with unkind vehemence. Her lashless eyes looked red and raw, like Marion's nose in Shakespeare, and her thin and unusual cartilaginous nose was not only painted scarlet, but highly varnished as well and there were two little patches on her cheeks that were peeling; but the good creature had no envy or even the mildest resentment at fate in her long, narrow body. She was delighted to see the girl looking brighter, and happier, and gave vent to a curious noise, nearly like a crow, over the news of the arrival.
"Oh dear," she kept repeating, rubbing her dry hands together with a rough scrape, "I shall be glad to see Violet—I shall be glad to see Violet," and then she went down into the kitchen to undertake all the more tiresome errands that must be done in order to achieve a really brilliant reception for the travellers.
Grisel was busy all day in a pleasant, unwearying manner. She filled her mother's room with flowers out of the garden and arranged those sent by Paul in the glasses for the table.
In the afternoon Jenny Wick arrived, with a basket of green peas that had been sent to her mother by a friend in the country and that Mrs. Wick had sent on as a little present to the "Happy House" people.
Late in the afternoon the cook, who was Grisel's devoted slave, being very busy with some elaborate confections in the kitchen, the two girls sat on the back steps where the Dorothy Perkins roses would, before long, be in their full glory, and shelled the peas, each with a big blue check apron over her frock.
"I guess this is the first time that ruby has ever shelled peas," Jenny exclaimed after a while. "It is a beauty, Grisel."