I know what you are, as well as you do yourself."
The words were brusk, and the inflection of them not much gentler, but
they fell on Rose's heart like rain; like an unexpected warm little
shower out of a brazen sky. She caught her breath, and, to her
consternation, felt her eyes flushing up with tears. She hadn't realized
the tension she had been under, until it was relaxed. She gave a shaky
half-suppressed sob and then made a desperate effort to pull herself
together.
"Now, look here!" said Miss Gibbons, in a tone harder and dryer than
ever. "I'm not going to take you in and pay you wages just because
you're a cat in a strange garret and don't know where to turn. I'm not
even going to do it to spite Harve Granger. But, if you've got any sort
of gumption about hats, I am going to do it, and the rest of this fool
town can say what it likes and do what it pleases. So the thing for you
to do is to quiet down sensibly and show me whether you can trim a hat."
It took Rose a few minutes to carry out the first part of this
injunction.
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