"Azraella, Azraella," cried Mrs. Grey, stung to impatience by this double thrust at her husband and her children. "You really should acquire the habit of learning facts before you form opinions. No girls were ever more cheerfully helpful and ready to do without the good times other girls have than mine are. Roberta tried—dear child, she is always trying something desperate—to cut the overgrown grass, since we had no man to do it. She borrowed your lawn-mower for it, but the grass was too long to use it. The Rutherford boys volunteered to the rescue, and mowed all this great lawn. What you took for an extravagant lawn-party was in reality a mowing-bee.
"I hope Roberta did not ruin my lawn-mower; I had no idea she wanted it for that tough grass, or I would never have lent it—she ought to have known better," said Aunt Azraella, shifting her attack.
"We didn't hurt it at all, aunt; we tried it, and when it wouldn't work we gave up at once," said Oswyth, beginning to tremble. She never could vent her wrath in lingual fireworks, as Rob did, and was sorely torn by the necessity of bottling it up. Now she longed to say that they would have been glad if their aunt had lent her burly Aaron, who was a great friend to the Grey girls, and would have come willingly, to cut the grass, but even Rob would hardly have ventured this.
"I need someone to help Elvira," said Mrs. Winslow, going off on a tangent—she had "irruptions of the brain," Rob said. "I have been thinking that I would take one of your girls, Mary. I would give her twelve dollars a month, and she could come home every night, and it would be time enough if she got up on the hill by half-past eight each morning. It would give you a little extra income. Prue would answer, if you can't spare Oswyth—I won't have Roberta."
Before Mrs. Grey could reply Oswyth sprang up, her face dark red to her hair, and saying in a choking voice, "Excuse me, mother; I must dress," ran upstairs without waiting for a dismissal.
"Goodness, Wythie, what is it now?" cried Rob, as her sister flung open the chamber-door with a bang. "You look mad."
"Mad? Mad?" echoed gentle Wythie. "I'm furious! Don't you go back there, either of you. She's more maddening than ever. She wants me or Prue for a servant to help Elvira—she won't have Rob."
"Why, I don't believe she will," drawled Rob, with a flash of her bright eyes. "Yet I would be good for her; a discipline, not unlike a scourge."
Prue thrust her head through the door between her room and the girls' chamber. She could not raise it because she was combing her fly-away locks over her face, forward from the neck, having heard that this treatment made the hair more fluffy. From the golden veil in which this enveloped her she spoke: "Wants me for a servant to help Elvira? Did you say that, Wythie? What did Mardy say?"
"I didn't wait to hear—I didn't dare. I felt as though I should have apoplexy," said Wythie. "She had been saying things before that."