Viola Vincent opened her blue eyes wide. "What ruffled you up, Fluffy?" she said. "I didn't say anything about the Nest." Then, happening to glance at Peggy, she realised what she had said, and blushed a little herself.
"I'm sure I didn't mean anything!" she cried, with a little giggle. "Of course when Miss Montfort gets all her things out and arranged, it will be quite charming, I'm sure it will."
"I haven't any more things!" said honest Peggy. She managed to keep her voice steady, but the tears would come into her eyes, and she raged at herself.
"Oh, you'll accumulate them!" said good-natured Viola, who liked to have people comfortable, if it did not take too much trouble. "Won't she, V.? We had hardly anything when we came, had we, V.? Barns, my dear, were nothing to us, were they, V.?"
"Oh, of course not!" assented Miss Varnham; but her smile was so like a sneer, and her glance about the room so cold and contemptuous, that Peggy felt dislike hardening at her heart.
"What is all that noise in the entry?" exclaimed Bertha Haughton, anxious to change the conversation. "It sounds as if an elephant were coming to call."
Viola Vincent fluttered to the door, patting her waist affectionately as she went.
"My dear!" she cried, in high-pitched staccato tones. "It's a box, an express box. Oh, it's a perfect monster, a mammoth! Vi, this must be your dresses. Hurrah! we'll have a grand trying on."
Vivia Varnham looked out. A burly expressman was staggering forward with an enormous box, almost as big as a packing-case.
"Take it in there!" she said, imperiously, motioning across the corridor. "Put it down carefully, mind! Miss Varnham, is it?"