“I haven’t got it.”
“Whatever!”
“Ivy!”
“Why should I keep it? I didn’t want it. And our wastepaper baskets are emptied twice a day. It’s one of the things Emma’s most particular about.”
Lucille gasped. Molly Wheeler looked on the point of weeping. “Weren’t you glad to get the violets?” she wailed.
“I certainly was not. I was displeased,” the sewing girl said coldly.
“You idiot! Come on, Molly; she’s hopeless. Let’s get on to Kate’s.”
“Yes, do,” Ivy said cheerfully. “I must get this done. And I simply can’t while you girls chatter, and sigh, and ‘Oh!’ and ‘Ah!’ ”
“You might let us see them first,” was Lucille’s final shot.
Ivy made no reply. She sewed on quietly and busily when they really had gone. But on the whole she felt less affronted by Mr. Sên than she had. And she wondered if she ought not, in common politeness, to send him a line of thanks—formal thanks.