“Well, he didn’t do any work on this house,” said her aunt decisively.
Back in her room a little later she was still uttering sighs of relief.
“Oh, I am so glad,” she pondered. “It isn’t this house after all. I suppose the children are just of that little rebellious mob who always hate dressed up folks.”
But somehow this did not seem a reasonable line of argument. First, they had called after her in the morning, then out at the Spring they had attempted to hit her with stones! Even little rebels would hardly do all that without some real or fancied reasons.
Tommy’s flowers were like a lovely party. Every bloom represented the whole life of the fair flower. How it had budded, how the rain had helped it, how the frost had threatened it— Gloria could see every bush of the tall graceful cosmos, as she sat there thinking. She must write to Tommy. And to Millie. It had been cowardly of her not to have done so before.
Then she remembered Trixy’s remarks about the young man in her house. What a comfort it had been to have such tenants! Weyland Smith, the real estate agent with whom Gloria’s father had placed his business, had written in glowing terms about those Hardys.
Once started on the letter writing the interest in her task carried her completely away. And she was surprised how simple it was when she actually undertook it. She told Millie she was having a good time at Sandford School and had decided not to go to boarding for another term at least.
“I can get a lot of good training here,” she injected, “and when I start at the seminary I won’t feel such a greenie.”
She told Tom he would be glad to hear she had escaped boarding school “for a time at least,” and she was getting along finely in the new work. “It’s lots harder than Barbend, Tom,” she stated, “but when I have learned what they give in this grade, I will feel I can hold my own among the swells.” Her thanks for his flowers were unmistakable in their sincerity.
Now, why had she ever feared to write anything so simple as all that?