"I suppose Irene----" "_Do_ shut up!" "Well Agnes said herself----" "It doesn't matter what Agnes said." "She's fixed----" "Peachy Proctor, if you blab like this you'll be tarred and feathered.
Girl alive, can't you keep a still tongue in your head?
If you'd lived in the Middle Ages you'd have ended your days in a dungeon!" Jess spoke hotly, and, by the general scandalized look on the faces of the others, Irene judged that luckless Peachy must have been on the verge of betraying some secret.

She tactfully turned the conversation with a remark upon the beauty of the sunset, and the clanging of the garden bell opportunely broke up the gathering, and sent the girls hurrying helter-skelter along the terrace in the direction of the house.
Irene paused for a moment to look back at the sea and the sky, and the distant twinkling lights, and to curtsy to the crescent moon that hung like a good omen in the dome of blue.

There was a scent of fragrant lemon blossoms in the air, and she trod fallen rose petals under her feet.

Suddenly a remembrance of the desolation of Miss Gordon's garden in a February fog swept across her mental vision.

Whatever trials she might encounter here--and she did not expect her new life to be absolute Paradise--the environment of this school in the south was perfect and would make up for many disadvantages.
"Give me sunshine and flowers and I'll always worry on somehow," she murmured, plucking a little crimson rose, and tucking it into her dress for a mascot, then ran with flying footsteps under the orange trees to catch up with her companions, who were already mounting the marble steps that led to the Villa Camellia..