Olga nodded. “She won’t be eighteen till next April. I wouldn’t stay there till I was eighteen. I’d clear out. She could earn her own living and not work half as hard somewhere else, and go out when she liked, too.” She was silent for a moment, then half aloud she added, “I’ll find a way to fix that woman yet!”
“Olga,” Laura looked straight into the sombre angry eyes, “you must not interfere in this matter. Two wrongs will never make a right. If there is anything that can be done for Elizabeth, be sure that I will do it. And if not—it is only seven months to April.”
“Seven months!” echoed Olga passionately. “Miss Laura, how would you live through seven months without ever getting out anywhere?”
Laura shook her head. “We will hope that Elizabeth will not have to do that,” she said gently. “But I hear some of the girls. Come.”
In the wide hall were half a dozen girls who had just arrived, and Laura led the way to a large room on the third floor. At the door of this room, the girls broke into cries and exclamations of pleasure.
“It’s like a bit of the camp,” Mary Hastings cried, and Rose Anderson exclaimed,
“It’s just the sweetest room I ever saw!” and she sniffed delightedly the spicy fragrance of the pines and balsam firs that stood in great green tubs about the walls. On the floor was a grass rug of green and wood-colour, and against the walls stood several long low settees of brown rattan, backs and seats cushioned in cretonne of soft greens and cream-colour, and a few chairs of like pattern were scattered about. Curtains of cream-coloured cheesecloth, with a stencilled design of pine cones in shaded browns, draped the windows, and in the wide fireplace a fire was laid ready for lighting. The low mantelpiece above it held only three brass candlesticks with bayberry candles, and above it, beautifully lettered in sepia, were the words,
“‘Whoso shall stand by this hearthstone,
Flame-fanned,
Shall never, never stand alone:
Whose house is dark and bare and cold,
Whose house is cold,
This is his own.’”
And below this
“‘Love is the joy of service so deep that self is forgotten.’”