Page:Hollyhock house; a story for girls (IA hollyhockhousest00tagg).pdf/131

Rh here, no boys, except that nice young secretary of Mr. Moulton’s, whom you say Florimel found along the wayside—like a flower! Are your friends keeping away from me? Because I wish they wouldn’t! Of course I’ve been having just the rest I needed since I came, but it might be—don’t you think?—the least bit dull to go on forever this way. I remember I found Vineclad overwhelmingly dull when I lived here. Aren’t there any pleasant people who will call on me, older than you are, but not so elderly, so sedately elderly as Mr. and Mrs. Moulton?” Mrs. Garden gave her daughters a glance like a naughty child venturing on mild disrespect to her elders. More than ever the relation between this mother and her children seemed to be reversed, as Mary received the glance and its suggestion with precisely that anxious air of helplessness so many mothers wear when their children threaten to prove difficult.

“Why, yes, mother dear, there are a good many young people in Vineclad who come to see us,” she replied. “They are letting us have you all to ourselves at first, you know. We don’t know them as we should have known them if Mr. Moulton had not been obliged to carry out father’s ideas of education. Girls who are