"But I haven't done anything, Esther. Mademoiselle asked how Pen was, and when I told her she was very unhappy about something she asked me why, and what it was, and I had to tell her; and then she just asked me all about it, and I—I told her. I couldn't help it—could I? I couldn't say I wouldn't."
"Penelope isn't very unhappy, nothing to make such a fuss about," grumbled Esther. "When I am unhappy no one takes any notice of me. I don't see anything wrong with her."
"Oh, don't you? I do. She is always so quiet, not like she used to be. She frets so about having vexed Miss Row, and not going on with her music."
"If Miss Row had acted so to me I should have too much pride to grieve. Why doesn't Penelope ask Mr. Jeffry to lend her the key of the organ? He would in a moment."
"She won't because she feels Miss Row did not mean her to have it."
"That is nonsense," retorted Esther. "She can't want it so very much if she won't take the trouble to speak to Mr. Jeffry. After all, it is not Miss Row's organ."
"Pen does want it very much," said Angela gently.
"I never did like Miss Row," Esther went on, still in her most disagreeable mood. "I could see she had a horrid temper. If Pen lets herself be taken up and made a lot of she must expect what she gets."
"But Miss Row didn't make more of Penelope than Mademoiselle has of you," urged Angela, always ready to defend her adored Penelope, "and you would feel it if Mademoiselle acted so to you."
"Oh, Mademoiselle is quite different from Miss Row," said Esther loftily. She did not admit even to herself that much of the charming difference lay in the fact that she had singled out her, Esther, from her sisters.