Rosie looked cross and she was cross. Ever since the return from the gypsy camp her tempestuous brows had not smoothed out their knots. Her eyes alternately burned and flashed and her cheeks were like red roses on fire.
Characteristically—because she wore red whenever she could—Rosie had gathered only the crimson roses. She held a great bunch of them now, and she stood stripping them of their thorns. Laura’s roses were pink; Maida’s yellow.
“I should think this would be enough,” Maida suggested in a moment. “Let’s put them in the vases.”
“Shall we mix them all together?” Rosie asked. “One color to each room is really prettier. Just think how lovely the living room will be with these great red roses everywhere.”
“Rosie, you shall decide where the flowers go to-day, and the next time Laura, and the next time me. That’s the only fair way,” Maida declared.
Indoors, Maida took them to the long closet lined with shelves, lighted by one window and furnished with a small sink, a table and three chairs, which she called the Flower Closet. On the shelves were vases and bowls of all colors and sizes; some high and slender; some squatty and low; of glass and china. For a few minutes conversation languished. The three little girls were all busy making their selection from these receptacles; cutting away too long stems and too heavy foliage; removing thorns.
Rosie as usual—her movements were always as swift as lightning—finished her work first. She came into the living room where Maida and Laura—the result of Laura’s idea—were trying bunches of yellow roses in low jars against bunches of pink ones in high ones.
“I wish I could get that Silva Burle out of my mind,” Rosie burst out with a sudden return of her irritation. “I keep thinking of her and I get so mad I’d just like to—”
“Granny says we can go down to the Pond now,” Arthur called suddenly, popping in the door. “We boys have been lugging the three canoes down to the Magic Mirror and believe me it’s some hot work. Granny says that we must put on our bathing suits here to-day.”
Boys and girls raced to their rooms. In a surprisingly brief time they were back again in bathing suits and bathing shoes; the girls with rubber caps in brilliant colors.