Her first touch of hate came. "Gawd, make me a lady quick!" she implored. Some one tapped on the door. Cecilia opened it. Annie was there, beaming. She held a long box with stems sticking out of one end of it. "Fer you, dearie," said Annie. Cecilia opened the box with trembling hands. The box held pink roses, very, very pink roses.... On the top lay a card. On it was written in a loose, boy-hand: "For little 'A-good-deal-of-whipped-cream-on-top.'" Cecilia stared at the card, breathless.
"Annie," she-said at last, "ain't they lovely?"
"Aren't, dearie," corrected Annie, and then added, "You bet they are! You bet!" Cecilia lifted them reverently. There were three dozens of them. Her years were such that numbers and prices still counted.
"Who shall I tell her they're from?" asked Annie. "Yuh got her goat, yuh know."
"Father McGowan," answered Cecilia. Suddenly the guilt of the other lie, her shame over the act unthinkable, and her new realisation of the standing of those she loved, slid from her soul. She was wildly happy. She hugged Annie.
The white furniture didn't glitter coldly. It smiled. A crowded flat was far away. The trees in a smug park were beautiful.
"One new frock," read Father McGowan, "twenty-five dollars. Hat, fifteen. 'Madam Girard's skin food, and wrinkle remover,' two dollars and fifty cents. Flat-heeled shoes, seven dollars. Taxi, one dollar and fifty-two cents. Church offering, ten cents."
Father McGowan threw back his head, and laughed loudly. Jeremiah Madden looked on him, bewildered.
"It's her cash account, yuh know. Twenty-five dollars fer one dress," he mused, with a pleased smile. "Ain't she learnin' quick? But the letter," he added, with a perplexed frown appearing, "it sounds too happy. The happiness is a little too thick. Smells like she put it on with a paint brush jest fer show."
"Hum——" grunted Father McGowan.