"It cuts like a knife to part with
dad's last present. Well, I'm rightly punished. What a fool I was to
get all those Japanese things from Spilman and that fancy ball-dress
for the theatricals. Oh, dear! Oh, dear!"
"Perhaps you won't want to part with your seal, dear," said Lucy, who
was not so greedy as some of the other girls and really pitied Polly.
"You have so many beautiful things without that, that you will be sure
to realize a good bit of money."
"No, Lucy, I owe such a lot; the seal must go. Oh, what a worry it
is!"
"And at auctions of this kind," said Rosalind in her low voice, "even
beautiful things don't realize much. How can they?"
"Rosalind is after that seal," whispered Lucy to Annie Day.
"The seal would swallow you up, Rosie," said Annie in a loud voice.
"Don't aspire to it; you'd never come out alive."
"The seal can be brought to know good manners," retorted Rose angrily.
"His size can be diminished and his strength abated. But I have not
said that I want him at all. You do so jump to conclusions, Miss Day."
"I know what I want," said a girl called Hetty Jones who had not yet
spoken. "I'm going in for some of Polly's ornaments. You won't put too
big a price upon your corals, will you, Poll?"
"I shall bid for your American rocking-chair, Polly," exclaimed Miss
Day.
Pages:
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147