Page:Hollyhock house; a story for girls (IA hollyhockhousest00tagg).pdf/135

Rh that this exotic must blossom and brighten in their garden at any cost.

Later, in the pantry, Jane came upon Mary shaking the lettuce for lunch out of its cold-water submersion. She looked up, as Jane came in, with such a sober face that Jane shook her, lightly, much as she was shaking the lettuce.

“You look like a frost-bitten Garden,” Jane declared, “and there’s no sense!”

“Suppose we can’t keep her, Janie? If she’s unhappy we shall not want to keep her,” Mary sighed, dropping a spoonful of mayonnaise on to the lettuce as if she said: “Ashes to ashes.”

“I don’t think she’s so heartless, Mary,” said Jane, intending to banish Mary’s anxiety by a shock, and certainly succeeding in shocking her.

“Heartless! Oh, Jane!” Mary cried.

“What else would it be, if she didn’t care enough about her own children to stay with them, when they were doing their best, too?” maintained Jane.

“If we had been her own children all along it would be different,” Mary suggested. “I’m afraid such young girls as we can’t make her happy. There’s so much we have to replace.”

“I think we’re pretty nice,” said Jane hon-