“I never expected she would ask me to chop down trees, of course,” explained Rosa. “She had always insisted that what I needed was hard work. She made fun of me for being soft, and I suppose that made me mad. At any rate, she promised that I would lose five pounds a week if I faithfully followed her advice.”
“Five pounds a week?” repeated Nancy, incredulously.
“Yes. And you see, if I lost twenty pounds in the month the folks are in Europe I would be quite—quite slender when they came back,” and she smiled so prettily that Nancy wondered Why she wanted to spoil those dimples with trimming off their scallops.
“And she was going to do all that—with violent exercise?” Nancy questioned in amazement.
“That and—starvation.” Rosa uttered the last word tragically. “I didn’t promise to starve but—now, Coz, haven’t I been humble enough? You don’t want to hear any more of the horrible details, do you?”
“Well, I’d like to know,” continued Nancy cautiously, “why she wanted the trees cut down? What was she going to do with them?”
“That’s just what I wanted to know, too,” Rosa said in reply. “I knew for a long time that she had some secret scheme; you know the night I hurt my foot we saw that she had a hatchet in her car, but she has never told me what the real plan was. I’ve known Orilla since I was a baby, and I suppose I’m used to her ways, but I must say she is secretive. And sly! I couldn’t find out the least thing, ever, that she didn’t want me to know.”
“Yes, I think she is like that,” agreed Nancy, thereby dismissing for a time at least the mystery of the plot. “But what we have got to do now is to fix up her damages. Rosa, I do wish you would let Margot see that big scratch. I’m no good at nursing and I don’t want to take the responsibility—”
“I’ll be as beautiful as ever in a day or two—see if I don’t,” replied Rosa, making desperate efforts not to wince as she poured the disinfectant over her hands.
“But when Margot smells this drug store she’ll surely suspect,” intimated Nancy, for, as she said, the disinfectants had made havoc with the atmosphere of Rosa’s little dressing room, that adjoined her bath.