CHAPTER XIX
DOWNSTAIRS in the kitchen Tommy was being comforted by his mother. In the upstairs sitting room Annabel and Miss Margaret sat together and Miss Margaret was wondering how she should begin what she had to say.
Annabel’s expression was one of sullen obstinacy, her lips were still set in a hard, straight line, and her eyes followed the intricacies of the pattern of the Brussels carpet. Miss Margaret hesitated to ask the child if it was she who had torn up the blades of grass, for she feared to prepare the way for a lie.
“I am so sorry you spoiled Tommy’s garden this afternoon, Annabel,” she ventured.
Annabel’s eyes were still on the carpet, and with her toe she outlined a full-blown rose. “It wasn’t a garden; it was just bits of grass,” she asserted.
“It was only bits of grass to you,” Miss Margaret agreed, “but Tommy had watched it and watered it for weeks, and to him it was a real garden. Now you have spoiled it all, and made Tommy very unhappy.”
“I hate him,” said Annabel, defiantly, between closed teeth.
“Yes, I know, of course you do,” and for the first time Annabel looked up.
Then Miss Margaret drew her to her. “I say, Annabel, don’t you think you and Tommy and I might be real good friends now, and all just be very nice to each other?”