"That comes from being shut up in a school-room," Miss Ri hastened to say; "it is trying work."
"She will get used to it in time," Grace replied. "Why, there is Miss Sally Price about as sturdy and rosy as anyone I know, and she's been teaching twenty-five years. What lovely old tables you have, Miss Ri. They remind me of grandmother's, don't they you, Lauretta? Dear grandmother, she was such a very particular old dame and would have her mahogany and silver always shining. I remember how she would say to her butler, 'James, that service is not as bright as it should be.'" Grace's imitation of her various forbears always conveyed the idea that they were most haughty and severe personages who never spoke except with military peremptoriness. She was constantly referring to grandmother Johnson, or great-uncle Blair or someone utterly irrelevant to the topic of the moment, and as entirely uninteresting to her audience.
"Did you leave everything all right at the farm?" asked Linda, hastening to change the subject. She knew that great-uncle Blair would be paraded next, if the slightest opportunity was allowed.
"Everything is as it should be," returned Grace high-and-mightily. "You didn't suppose for an instant, Linda, that I would leave anything at loose ends. Of course, it has been most arduous work for Lauretta and I, but we have the satisfaction of knowing that we have not neglected anything. I am completely fagged out, and feel that a rest is essential."
Miss Ri's eye travelled from Grace's plump proportions to Linda's slight figure. "Well," she said bluntly, "work evidently agrees with you, for I never saw you looking better."
Grace bit her lip and searched her mind for a fitting retort but could only say piously, "One must bear up for the sake of others. The world cannot see behind the scenes, my dear Miss Hill, and that a smile may hide a breaking heart."
"Come up and see my room," proposed Linda, anxious to prevent what promised to be a passage at arms between Miss Ri and Grace. "Come, Lauretta, I want you to see the view from my windows." And so she managed to get them away before there were any hurt feelings.
After this matters passed off well enough, although great-uncle Blair was dragged in more than once at the dinner table, and grandmother Johnson's haughty attitude toward underlings was again reproduced for the benefit of all. Miss Ri chafed under the affectations, but was too polite to show it, though when the door at last closed upon her guests she turned to Linda.
"I'm glad enough they are not your blood kin, Verlinda Talbot. I hope Heaven will give me patience always to behave with politeness when Grace Talbot is around. A daily dose of her would be too much for my Christian forbearance. I wonder you stood her so long, and what Martin was thinking of to be blinded by a superficial, shallow, underbred creature like that is beyond me."