"I don't believe this!" Adelaide, twinkles in her eyes, muttered to no one else but her unsightly private teacher who was standing by her side. The five-year-old could hardly contain her joy. She knew Ms. Powell would be able to tell.
It was barely a minute ago when Simon walked out of the drawing room after breaking the giddy news to her in the presence of the two other men that were there in that place, for the purpose of doing the job.…
Mr. Allain, one of the painters, who was holding up the bucket of creamy wall paint, hoisted a sneer upon his shriveled face. "I am part-disappointed, and part-upset," he said crossly to his partner, a gross man who was beer-bellied. He was standing near the ladder Allain had mounted up on.
"Shame," his partner said, with a disappointing nod of his hirsute head. The man's lips were wide, and his mouth large. Adelaide thought that he resembled a frog.
