She looked about her at the plainly furnished room. Then in her mind’s eye she saw through the wall into the room furnished for her cousin Hazel. The girl with the wonderful voice, the girl with the high-spirited ways, the girls so many at school talked about but so few said anything tangible concerning.
It was always, “Your cousin has wonderful hair,” or “Your cousin is going to be a singer,” or even, “I suppose you came up to be company for your aunt while your cousin is away at boarding school.”
Gloria had simply said “yes” or “no,” not deigning to add a remark that might have pleased the curious or critical. But when Natalie Warren said something about the Towers being “pretty well off,” and with the comment bestowing a compassionate glance at the silent Gloria, there had almost been an outbreak of the temperamental flash that always seemed held in restraint just back of those glittering eyes.
“I suppose they consider me the poor relation,” she was thinking now, while preparing before the homemade dresser for her day at Sandford Central School.
This thought spoiled the ripple that was trying hard to hold its place in her glossy hair, for a vicious twitch of the comb and a stab with a small side comb made a jagged part at the wrong place, and dragged the pretty wave down disconsolately too far over the sides of her head.
She aired her bed, opened her window and slammed the closet door. This last shook the bottle on her bureau, and if it hadn’t been Mildred’s parting gift, her “toilet water for boarding school use,” Gloria felt she would love to have seen it smash.
She just wanted to smash something. That house was so quiet and so overly well cared for. Even Tobias, the cat, couldn’t seem to have any fun in it.
“But it can’t last forever,” Gloria tried to assure herself, “and I ought soon to be getting mail from dad.”
One Saturday evening some weeks later, Gloria’s Uncle Charley came home. The sight of him filled her with sudden joy—he was just a little like her dad, and he was the good-natured, thoughtful uncle, who was ever willing to talk of the things she would care to talk of, and always kind enough to “stir up a jolly atmosphere.” It was a relief to see him, and the prospects of having the weight of gloom lifted by his presence, gave Gloria a quick reaction to her old time happy self.