"Evidently you and Concetta cannot work together at the same time. We'll send Nellie down to the kitchen this week. Now, Brenda, I'll leave you with Maggie for a little while, and she can tell you what she is learning here."
But the interview was far from satisfactory to either of the two. Maggie, always reticent, was now doubly so, as her mind dwelt on the insult she had received from the Italian girl, "dago," as she said to herself. On her part Brenda hated tears, and as she had not witnessed the quarrel, she felt for Maggie less sympathy than when she had seen her weep over the broken vase. Brenda asked a few questions, Maggie replied in monosyllables, and both were relieved when Miss South suggested that Maggie take Brenda up to see her room.
Meanwhile the two young girls in the kitchen were engaged in an animated discussion. In Brenda's presence Concetta's great, dark eyes had expressed intense admiration for the slender, graceful young woman flitting about with pleased exclamations for everything that she saw.
"Ain't she stylish?" Concetta said to her companion as the visitors turned away, "with all them silver things jingling from her belt, and such shiny shoes. Say! don't you think those were silk flowers on her hat?"
Concetta had not been able to give to her English the polish of her native tongue, and the grammar acquired in her teacher's presence slipped away under the influence of the many-tongued neighborhood where she lived.
"She's a great sight handsomer than that Miss Blair," and she looked at her companion narrowly.
"Yes, I wish she'd brought me here instead of Miss Blair; she seems so lively, and Miss Blair is so--so kind of slow."
Gretchen knew very well that she was wrong in speaking thus of the one whose interest had made her an inmate of the delightful Mansion, yet as she and her companion continued to talk Brenda gained constantly at the expense of Edith.
It not infrequently happens that those persons whom we ought to admire the most are those whom we find it the hardest to admire, sometimes even to like. Gretchen owed everything to Edith, who had been very kind to her at a time when her family were in rather sore straits. But appearances count for more than they should with many young persons. Whatever Edith wore was in good taste, and costly, even when lacking in the indefinite something called style. Nora the girls would have put in the same class with Brenda, as quite worthy for them to copy when they should be old enough to dress like young ladies. They did not know that Nora's clothes cost far less than Brenda's, and that Edith's dress was usually twice as costly. It was undoubtedly Brenda's brightness of manner and her generally graceful air that they translated into "stylishness"--the kind of thing that they thought they could make their own by imitation and practice when they were older.