“No, Lucy, I owe such a lot; the seal must go. Oh, what a worry it is!”
“And at auctions of this kind,” said Rosalind, in her low voice, “even beautiful things don’t realise much. How can they?”
“Rosalind is after that seal,” whispered Lucy to Annie Day.
“The seal would swallow you up, Rosie,” said Annie, in a loud voice. “Don’t aspire to it; you’d never come out alive.”
“The seal can be brought to know good manners,” retorted Rose, angrily. “His size can be diminished, and his strength abated. But I have not said that I want him at all. You do so jump to conclusions, Miss Day.”
“I know what I want,” said a girl called Hetty Jones, who had not yet spoken: “I’m going in for some of Polly’s ornaments. You won’t put too big a price upon your corals, will you, Poll?”
“I shall bid for your American rocking-chair, Polly,” exclaimed Miss Day.
“I tell you what you must do, Miss Singleton,” shouted another girl, “you must get those inventories ready as soon as possible, and send them round the college for everyone to read, for you have got such nice things that there will be sure to be a great rush at your auction.”
“Don’t sell any of the college possessions by mistake, my dear,” said Lucy Marsh. “You would get into trouble then. Indeed, as it is, I don’t see how you are to keep out of it.”
Polly pushed her hands impatiently through her bright red hair.