But Rose was too busy with another package to answer Chi. She grew wildly enthusiastic over the calla lilies that Alan Ford had sent her, and caressed their white envelopes, and praised their pure loveliness, until Hazel, growing jealous for poor Jack and his discarded gift, rose to put the neglected beauties in water, saying as she did so:
"I 'm sure, Rose, if Jack had known you cared so much for lilies, he would have sent you some Easter ones, they 're out now. I 'll tell him to next time."
"Hazel!" Rose burst forth indignantly, "do you mean to tell me you told Mr. Sherrill to send me these flowers for a valentine?"
Then Hazel, stung by the tone and the words, yielded to temptation--for it had been the last straw. "What if I did?" she said with irritating calm, "he 's my cousin. I suppose I can say what I choose to him."
Rose answered never a word; but, rising, took the La France roses from the pitcher in which Hazel had just placed them, and, going over to the fireplace, deliberately cast the mass of delicate pink bloom into the fire.
Mrs. Blossom looked both puzzled and shocked; this was wholly unlike Rose. What could it mean? The children were too awed by the proceeding to speak or exclaim. March looked gravely at Hazel, who burst into tears--it was such an insult to Jack!--and rushed into her bedroom and shut the door.
"I 'm going to bed; good-night, Martie," said Rose, quietly, after she had watched the last leaf shrivel in the flame, and, kissing her mother, she lighted her candle and went upstairs. Mrs. Blossom, following her with her eyes, felt that she had lost her "little Rose" in that hour.
March looked grave, complained of feeling tired, and said he would go to bed, too, as to-morrow was the last day of school and there were two more examinations to take. Budd and Cherry kissed their mother twice, bade her good-night in suppressed tones and crept upstairs. "It's just as if somebody was sick in the house," said Cherry, in an awed voice. Budd's was sepulchral:--
"It's just as if somebody was dead and all the flowers had come for the funeral."
Across the dining-room table, loaded with boxes and brilliant with valentines, Chi looked at Mrs. Blossom, and Mrs. Blossom looked at Chi. The whole affair was so incomprehensible, and the result so painfully disagreeable, that, for a while, they found no words with which to give expression to their feelings. Chi broke the silence:--