Speed Nell
Molly Brown of Kentucky
“Aunt Mary, I think you are feeling better, aren’t you? You seem much more lively than when I saw you last.”
“’Cose I is feelin’ better. Ain’t we done heard good news from that there Kent?”
“But I thought you knew all the time he was all right.”
“Well now, so I did, so fur as I knew anything, but they was times when I doubted, an’ those times pulled me back right smart. Why, honey, I used ter pray the Almighty if he lacked a soul ter jes’ tak me. I is a no ’count ole nigger on the outside but mebbe my soul is some good yit. If I could give up my life fur one er Miss Milly’s chillun, I’d be proud ter do it!”
“Oh, Aunt Mary, you have been so good to us always!”
“Lawsamussy, chile! What I here fur but ter be good ter my white folks? They’s been good ter me – as good as gole. I ain’t never wanted fur nothin’ an’ I ain’t never had a hard word from Carmichael or Brown, savin’, of cose, Miss Sary. She is spoke some hard words in her day, but she didn’ never mean nothin’ by them words. I don’t bear no grudge against po’ Miss Sary. The good Lord done made her a leetle awry an’ ’tain’t fur me ter be the one ter try to straighten her out. Sometimes whin I lies here a thinkin’ it seems ter me mebbe some folks is made lak Miss Sary jes’ so they kin be angels on earth like yo’ maw. Miss Sary done sanctified yo’ maw. She done tried her an’ rubbed aginst her, burnt her in de fire of renunciation and drinched her in the waters of reproachment until yo maw is come out refimed gold.”
“Maybe you are right, Aunt Mary. I am trying to be nicer about the way I feel about Aunt Clay myself. I think if I feel differently, maybe Aunt Clay would feel differently toward me. She does not like me, and why should she, since I don’t really like her?”
“I don’t want ter take no Christian thoughts from yo’ min’ an’ heart, honey chile, but the good you’ll git from thinkin’ kin’ things ’bout Miss Sary will be all yo’ own good. Miss Sary ain’t gonter be no diffrent. She done got too sot in her ways. The leper ain’t gonter change his spots now no mo’n it did in the time er Noah, certainly no ole tough leper lak Miss Sary.”
It was hard to tell the old woman good-by. Every time Molly left Chatsworth she feared it would be the last farewell to poor old Aunt Mary. She had been bedridden now for many months, but she hung on to life with a tenacity that was astonishing.
“Cose, I is ready ter go whin the Marster calls,” she would say, “but I ain’t a hurryin’ of him. A creakin’ do’ hangs long on its hinges an’ the white folks done iled up my hinges so, what with good victuals with plenty er suption in ’em an’ a little dram now an’ then ’cordin’ ter the doctor’s subscription, that sometimes I don’t creak at all. I may git up out’n this here baid ’fo long an’ be as spry as the nex’. I wouldn’t min’ goin’ so much if I jes’ had mo’ idee what Heaven is lak. I’m so feard it will be strange ter me. I don’t want ter walk on no goldin’ streets. Gold ain’t no better ter walk on than bricks. Miss Milly done read me the Psalm what say: ‘He maketh me to lay down in the green pastures.’ Now that there piece sounds mighty pretty – jes’ lak singin’, but I ain’t never been no han’ to set on the damp groun’ an’ Heaven or no Heaven, I low it would give me a misery ter be a doin’ it now; an’ as fer layin’ on it, no’m! I wants a good rockin’ cheer, an’ I wants it in the house, an’ when I wants ter res’ myse’f, a baid is good enough fer me.”
The old woman’s theology was a knotty problem for all of the Brown family. They would read to her from the Bible and reason with her, but her preconceived notion of Heaven was too much for them. She believed firmly in the pearly gates and the golden streets, and freely announced she would rather have her own cabin duplicated on the other side than all the many mansions, and her own whitewashed gate with hinges made from the soles of old shoes than the pearly gates.
“What I want with a mansion? The cabin whar I been a livin’ all my life is plenty good enough for this old nigger. An’ what’s mo, blue grass a growin’ on each side of a shady lane is better’n golden streets. I ain’t a goin’ ter be hard-headed bout Heaven, but I hope the Marster will let me settle in some cottage an’ let it be in the country where I kin raise a few chickens an’ mebbe keep a houndog.”
“I am sure the Master will let you have whatever you want, dear Aunt Mary,” Molly would say.
“But if’n he does that, I’ll get too rotten spiled ter stay in Heaven. He better limit me some, or I’ll feel too proudified even fer a angel.”
CHAPTER XV.
WELLINGTON AGAIN
“Oh, it is nice to be back home,” sighed Molly, settling herself luxuriously in the sleepy-hollow chair that was supposed to be set aside for the master of the house. With the girlish habit she had never outgrown, she slipped off her pumps and stretched out her slender feet to the wood fire, that felt very comfortable in the crisp autumn weather.
“That’s what you said when we arrived in Kentucky in the spring,” teased her husband.
“Well, so it was nice. The migratory birds have two homes and they are always glad to get to whichever one is seasonable. I reckon I am with my two homes as Mother is with her seven children. I love them just the same. Thank goodness, I haven’t seven of them, homes, I mean.”
“Yes, I think two are enough.”
“Which home do you love best, Wellington or the Orchard Home?” asked Molly, smiling fondly at her husband, who was dandling little Mildred on his knees with awkward eagerness.
“Why, neither one of them is home to me unless you are there, and whichever one you grace with your presence is for the time being the one I like the better.”
“And the baby, too, whichever one she is in makes it home!”
“Oh, certainly!” exclaimed Edwin Green with a whimsical expression on his face. “I see that when I make love now it is to be to two ladies and not to one.”
“Don’t you think Mildred has grown a lot? And see, her eyes have really turned brown, just as Mother said they would. Don’t you think she looks well?”
“Yes, honey, I think she looks very well, but I don’t think you do.”
“Me! Nonsense! I am as well as can be, just a little tired from the trip.”
“Yes, I know. Of course that was fatiguing, but I think you are thinner than you have any right to be. I am afraid you have been doing too much.”
“Oh, not at all. I have had simply nothing to do but take care of the baby, and that is just play, real play.”
“Humph, no doubt! But maybe you have played too hard and that is what has tired you. I thought you were going to bring Kizzie along to nurse.”
“Oh, that was your and Mother’s plan! I never had any idea of doing it. ’Deed and um’s muvver is going to take care of ’ittle bits a baby herself,” and Molly reached out and snuggled the willing Mildred down in the sleepy-hollow chair. Daddy’s knee was not the most comfortable spot in the world, and a back that has only been in the world about four months cannot stand for much dandling.
“But, Molly darling, Kizzie is a good girl and it would help you ever so much to have her. You know we can well afford it now, so don’t let the financial side of it worry you.”
“But, Edwin, I can’t give up taking care of the baby. I just love to do it.”
“All right, my dear, but please don’t wear yourself out.”
The fact was that the long strain of waiting for news from Kent had told on Molly, and she was looking quite wan and tired. It was not just the trip from Kentucky, which, of course, was no easy matter. Twenty-four hours on the train with an infant that needed much attention and got much more than it really needed was no joke, but the long hours and days of waiting and uncertainty had taken Molly’s strength. She did feel tired and had no appetite, but she felt sure a night’s rest would restore her. She rather attributed her lack of appetite to the poor food that the new Irish maid, whom Edwin had installed in her absence, was serving.
“I’ll take hold of her to-morrow and see what can be done,” she said rather wearily to herself. “I wish Mother could train her for me. I should much rather do the cooking myself than try to train some one who is as hopelessly green as this girl.”
That night little Mildred decided was a good time to assert herself. The trip had not tired her at all; on the contrary, it had spurred her on to a state of hilarity, which was very amusing at first but as the night wore on, ceased to be funny. She had come to the delightful knowledge of the fact that she had feet and that each foot had five toes. The cover did not stay on these little pigs one moment. Every time Molly would settle her tired bones and begin to doze, there would be a crow from Mildred, a gurgle, and straight in the air would go the bed clothes, tucked in for the millionth time by the patient young mother. Then the pink tootsies would leap into sight and soon find their way to a determined little mouth.
“Darling, you must go to sleepsumby!” Molly would remonstrate. “And you will catch your death if you don’t keep covered up!”
But the four months’ old baby had been too busy in her short life learning other things to bother her head about a mere language. The business of the night was feet and feet alone. There was too much to do about those wonderful little feet for her to think of sleep. Finally Molly gave up. She closed the windows, as too much fresh air on bare feet and legs might not be best and already the little limbs were icy cold. Then she kindled a fire in the grate, the furnace not yet having been started, and gave herself up to a night of sleeplessness. Early in the action, Edwin had been banished to the guest chamber, as he must get sleep no matter what happened, for he had a busy day ahead of him.
Toward morning little Mildred mastered her pedagogy, as her father had called it, and then she dropped off into a deep and peaceful sleep. The weary Molly slept, too.
Before he went to his lectures, Edwin crept into the room to look at his sleeping treasures. The chubby baby still had a toe clasped in her hand but from very weariness had fallen over on her side and was covered up all but the pink foot, which was asserting itself in the remarkable position that only the young can take. Molly looked very pale and tired but was sleeping peacefully. Edwin smiled at them. He had given the green maid from the Emerald Isle strict orders not to awaken them. He devoutly hoped that Molly would not know what a very mean breakfast he had endeavored to choke down; burnt bacon and underdone biscuit washed down with very weak coffee and flanked by eggs that had been cooked too long and not long enough, thereby undergoing that process that the chemist tells us is of all things the most indigestible: half hard and half soft. The burnt bacon had been cold and the underdone biscuit still cooking, seemingly, when the poor young husband and father had tried to nourish himself on them.
He had rather hoped when Molly once got back to Wellington that his food would be better; no doubt it would as soon as she, poor girl, could get rested up. He was thankful, indeed, now that she was asleep and tiptoed out of the room and house without making a sound.
She slept until late in the morning and then the business of the day began, getting little Mildred fed and washed and dressed and fed again and then to sleep. The good-natured, if wholly incapable, Katy hung around and waited on the pretty young mistress. Katy had never been out in service in the “schtates,” but had come from New York in answer to an advertisement in a newspaper inserted by the despairing professor when he had come back to Wellington alone while his wife waited in Kentucky for news of her brother. He had had kindly visions of getting a good Irish cook and having the housekeeping all running beautifully before Molly’s return.
Immigrant Katy proved rosy and willing but with no more conception of how to cook than she had how to clean. She was great on “scroobing,” but walls and furniture and carpets were not supposed to be scrubbed. The kitchen floor and pantry shelves were alike beautiful after her administrations, but gold dust and a stiff brush had not improved the appearance of the piano legs. Edwin had come home in the nick of time to stop her before she vented her energies on Molly’s own Persian rug, the pride of her heart because of the wonderful blue in it.
“What time is it, Katy?” asked Molly after the baby was absolutely finished and tucked in her carriage to stay on the porch.
“’Tis twilve of the clock, Miss, and I haven’t so much as turned a hand below schtairs.”
“Oh, it can’t be that late! Lunch at one! What are we to have?”
“And that I am not knowing, Miss. Sure and there is nothing in the house.”
“Oh, Katy, and I have been dawdling up here for hours! I forgot about keeping house, I was so taken up with the baby.”
“Yes, and no doubt your man will be sour about it, too.”
Molly, still in her kimono, flew to the regions below and began frantically to search for something to concoct into luncheon. A forlorn piece of roast veal was excavated and half a loaf of stale baker’s bread. A can of asparagus, a leftover from the housekeeping of the spring, was unearthed. Olive oil was in the refrigerator, also, butter, milk and eggs. The veal looked very hopeless, evidently having reposed for hours in a half cold oven before it had furnished forth a miserable dinner for the poor professor.
“Now I’ll ’form a miracle on the vituals,’ as dear Aunt Mary would say,” declared Molly to herself. “Katy, get the dining room straight. Don’t scrub anything but just clear off the table and then set it again as well as you can. Put on a fresh lunch cloth and clean napkins; then see that the fire in the library is all right.”
The veal, run through the meat chopper, came out better than was to be expected, and croquettes were formed and frying in deep fat before the dazed Katy had cleared off the breakfast table.
“Katy, you must hurry or we won’t have the master’s luncheon ready when he gets in.”
“Faith, and, Mrs. Green, you do be flying round so schwift like, that I can’t get me breath. I feel like the wind from your schkirts was sinding me back. All I can do is schtand schtill and breast the wind.”
“Well, I tell you what you do then,” laughed Molly: “You come fly with the wind,” and she caught the Irish girl by the hand and ran her around the dining room table just to show her how fast she could go if necessary. Katy, having got wound up, kept on going at a rate of speed that was astonishing. To be sure, she broke a cup and a plate, but what was a little chaney to the master’s luncheon being served on time?
The faithful can of asparagus was opened and heated; toast was made from the half loaf of stale bread, and a cream sauce prepared to pour over the asparagus on toast. Popovers were stirred up and in the oven before Katy got the table set, although she was going with the wind instead of trying to breast it. A few rosy apples from the orchard at Chatsworth, unearthed from the depths of the unpacked trunk, formed a salad with a mayonnaise made in such a hurry that Molly trembled for its quality; but luck being with her that day, it turned out beautifully.
“No lettuce, so we’ll put the salad on those green majolica plates and maybe he won’t notice,” she called to Katy, just as the professor opened the front door.
“Mol – ly!” he called.
“Here I am.”
The mistress of the house emerged from the kitchen in a state of mussiness but looking very pretty withal, her red-gold hair curling up in little ringlets from the steam and her cheeks as rosy as though she had joost come over wid Katy. Her blue kimono was very becoming but hardly what she would have chosen to appear in at luncheon.
“I am so sorry not to be dressed, but I had to hustle so as to get lunch ready in time. The clock struck twelve when I thought it was about ten.”
“Did you have to get luncheon? Where was Katy?”
“She helped, but I wanted to have a finger in it. If you will wait a minute, I will get into a dress.”
“Why, you look beautiful in that loose blue thing; besides, I have to eat and run. A faculty meeting is calling me.”
The luncheon was delicious, and Edwin gave it all praise by devouring large quantities of it. Molly could not eat much as she was too hot, and hurrying is not conducive to appetite. Mildred, who was sleeping on the porch, awoke when the meal was half over and Molly could not trust Katy to take her up.
“She might hold her upside down. I will bring her to the table and she can talk to you while you are finishing!”
So Molly flew to the porch and picked up her darling. She had intended to take her to the dining room but she remembered it was time for Mildred to have her food and so the patient Edwin had to finish his meal alone.
He found his wife and baby on the upper back porch. The color had left Molly’s cheeks and she was quite pale, and there was a little wan, wistful look in her countenance that Edwin did not like.
“Molly, honey, you are all tired out. You did not eat your luncheon and you got no sleep last night. What are we going to do about it?”
“Oh, I’m all right! Please don’t bother about me! Did you like the apple salad? They were apples from Kentucky.”
“Fine! Everything was delicious. But I don’t want you to wear yourself out cooking. If Katy can’t cook, we must get some one who can. If she can’t cook and you won’t let her nurse, why what is the use of her?”
Molly, worn out with the sleepless night and the record breaking getting of a meal out of nothing, felt as though she would disgrace herself in a minute and burst into tears. She could not discuss the matter with Edwin for fear of breaking down. Edwin kissed her good-by and tactfully withdrew.
“You goose, Molly Brown!” she scolded herself. “And what on earth are you so full of tears over? I know Edwin thinks I ought to have a nurse and I just can’t trust Mildred to any one. I am going to try so hard to have everything so nice that he won’t think about it any more.”
A grand telephoning for provisions ensued, and a dinner was planned for six-thirty that would have taxed the culinary powers of a real chef and before which Katy bowed her head in defeat. It meant that by four Molly must be back in the kitchen to start things.
CHAPTER XVI.
IRISHMAN’S CURTAINS
Callers came in through the afternoon to welcome back to Wellington the popular wife of the popular professor and to glimpse the new baby. Kind Mrs. McLean, the wife of the doctor, a little older than when last we saw her but showing it only in her whitening hair and not at all in her upright carriage and British complexion, stopped in “just for a moment” to be picked up later by the doctor on his way to a country patient. Miss Walker herself, the busy president of Wellington, ran in from the meeting of the faculty to greet her one time pupil and to give one kiss to the college baby. Several of the seniors, who were freshmen when Molly was still at college as post graduate and who had the delight of calling her Molly while most of the others had to say Mrs. Green, came in fresh from a game of basketball, glowing with health and enthusiasm.
While these friends were all gathered about Molly and the baby, Alice Fern, Edwin Green’s cousin, driving in to Wellington in a very stylish new electric car, stopped to make a fashionable call on her law kin. She had never forgiven Molly for stealing (as she expressed it) Edwin’s affections. She was still Miss Fern, and although she was possessed of beauty and intelligence, it was likely that she would remain Miss Fern. Molly was never very much at her ease with Alice. She was particularly sensitive to any feeling of dislike entertained toward her, and Edwin’s cousin always made her feel that she disapproved of her in some way.
The living room in the broad old red brick house on the campus, occupied by the professor of English, was a pleasant room, breathing of the tastes and pursuits of the owners. Low bookshelves were in every nook and cranny, filled with books, the shelves actually sagging with them. Botticelli’s Primavera, a present from Mary Stewart, adorned one wall; Mathew Jouette’s portrait of Molly’s great grandmother, a wedding present from Aunt Clay, another. This was the portrait that looked so much like Molly and also like the Marquise d’Ochtè, between whom and Aunt Sarah Clay there was no love lost; indeed, it was this likeness that had induced Aunt Clay to part with such a valuable work of art. The other pictures were some dashing, clever sketches by Judy Kean, and Pierce Kinsella’s very lovely portrait of Mrs. Brown, that had won honorable mention at the Salon and then had been sent by the young artist to adorn Molly’s home. On the whole, it was a very satisfactory and tastefully furnished room and Molly and Edwin always declared they could talk better and think better in that room than in any they had ever seen.
On that first day home, Molly was a little conscious of the fact that the room needed a thorough cleaning, not the scrubbing that Katy was so desirous of administering, but just a good thorough cleaning. However, she was so glad to see her friends again and so proud of showing her wonderful baby to them that the cleaning seemed of small importance.
“I’ll dust all the books to-morrow,” she said to herself, “and have Katy wipe down the walls, polish the glass on the pictures, and above all, wash the windows.”
She well knew that Miss Walker and dear Mrs. McLean were not noticing such things, or, if they did, they would make all excuses. As for the college girls – dirt was not what they came to see. They came to see the lovely Molly and her adorable baby. If the walls were festooned with cobwebs, why that was the way walls should be in the home of a learned professor of English, who had written several books, besides the libretto to a successful opera, and who was married to a beautiful Titian-haired girl who was also a genius in her way, having been accepted in magazines when she was not even out of college. What did they care for dust on the books and smeary window panes? Molly was so popular with the college girls that in their eyes she was perfection itself.
Alice Fern’s entrance broke up the cheerful group gathered around Molly and the rosy Mildred. Miss Walker suddenly remembered that she had an important engagement and hurried off, and Mrs. McLean, who made no endeavor to hide her impatience at Miss Fern’s exceeding smugness, went outside to wait for the doctor. The girls stayed, however, hoping to sit out the unwelcome interrupter.
These girls were favorites of Molly’s. The harum scarum Billie McKym from New York reminded her in a way of her own Judy, although no one else could see it. Josephine Crittenden, Tom boy of college and leader in all sports, hailed from Kentucky, and being a distant relative of Crittenden Rutledge, Mildred Brown’s husband, was of course taken immediately under the wing of the loyal Molly. She had what she called a crush on Molly, and not a little did she amuse that young matron, as well as annoy her, by her gifts of flowers and candy.
The third girl was from the West. Thelma Olsen was her name, and although her family had been in America for three generations, Thelma had inherited the characteristics of a Viking maiden along with the name. She was very tall, with an excellent figure and the strength of a man. Her hair was as yellow as gold and her eyes as blue as corn flowers. She moved with dignity, holding her head up like a queen. Her expression was calm and kindly. She had, in very truth, worked her way through college, which of course appealed to Molly, remembering well her own boot blacking days and her many schemes for making a few pennies. But what most touched our Molly was the fact that Thelma had a writing bee in her bonnet. The girl had an instinct for literature and a longing for expression that must come out. Professor Green thought very highly of her gift for prose and did much to encourage her.
These three girls formed a strange trio, but they were inseparable, having roomed together since their freshman year. Billie was very rich in her own name, since she was an orphan with nothing closer than a guardian and an aunt-in-law. Money meant no more to her than black-eyed peas. She was intensely affectionate and where she loved, she loved so fiercely that it positively hurt, she used to say. She was witty and clever but not much of a student, as is often the case where learning comes too easily. She was so generous it was embarrassing to her friends. Her talent lay in clothes. She knew more about clothes than Paquin and Doucet and all the others. It positively hurt her when her friends did not wear becoming clothes, just as it hurt her when she loved them so hard. The object of her life was to clothe her dear friend Thelma in dark blue velvet. Thelma was too proud to be clothed in anything that she had not paid for herself, and the consequence was that coarse blue serge was as near as she came to poor Billie’s dream.
Alice Fern seated herself on the front of a chair with very much of a lady-come-to-see expression and then formally entered into a conversation, going through the usual questions about when Molly had arrived and how old the baby was, polite inquiries regarding the relatives in Kentucky, etc.
Molly was eager to get into the kitchen just for a moment to start Katy on the right track, well knowing that nothing would be doing until she did, but Alice Fern’s arrival made that impossible. She would not in the least have minded excusing herself for a moment to the girls, but if Edwin Green had to wait until midnight for his dinner, she could not be guilty of such a breach of etiquette with the cousin-in-law, whose disapproval she felt was ever on the alert for a raison d’être. A leg of lamb, and well grown lamb at that, must have plenty of time and the oven must be hot (something Katy knew nothing about), but the wife of Professor Green must not let his relatives know that she was such a poor manager as to have to leave the parlor to attend to cooking at a time in the afternoon when callers were supposed to be doing their calling.
Alice Fern was really a very pretty young woman, and since she had nothing to do but attend to her person, she was always excellently well groomed. No blemish was allowed on her faultless complexion from sun or wind. An hour a day was religiously given up to massage and manicure. Her hair was always coiffed in the latest mode, and not one lock was ever known to be out of place. Her costume was ever of the richest and most stylish.
On that afternoon, as she rode up in her closed electric car, dressed in a fawn-colored suit with spotless white gloves and spats, she really looked like a beautiful wax figure in a showcase. Beside her, poor Molly looked like a rumpled Madonna. She had on a very becoming blue linen house dress that she had donned as not only suitable for possible callers but also not too pure or good in which to cook her husband’s food. The baby had delighted the admiring audience, before the arrival of Miss Fern, by clutching a handful of her mother’s pretty hair and having to have her little pink fingers opened one by one to disengage them. No doubt it was a highly intelligent and charming performance, but it had played sad havoc with Molly’s hair.
“We are so glad you are back, Molly, for more reasons than one,” exclaimed Jo Crittenden, hoping to loosen the tension a little, when Alice had completed her perfunctory catechism. “When are you going to begin the Would-be Authors’ Club?”
“Oh, do begin soon!” begged Billie. “Thelma has turned out some scrumptious bits during vacation, and even I have busted loose on paper.”
“Yes, I have written a lot this summer,” said Thelma, as Molly smiled on her. “Have you done anything, or has the baby kept you too busy?”
“Oh, I had plenty of time while I was in Kentucky. You see, out there I have a very good servant and then my mother helps me with Mildred. I have finished a short story and sent it off. Of course, I am expecting it back by every mail.”
“I should think your household cares would prevent your giving much time to scribbling,” sniffed Alice, if one could call the utterances of such an elegant dame sniffing.
“Scribbling! Why, Mrs. Green has written real things and been in real magazines,” stormed Billie.
“Ah, indeed!”
“Yes, and if we had not limited the Would-be Authors to twenty, we would have the whole of Wellington clamoring to join,” declared Jo, who considered it was high time for a perfect gentleman to step in and let Miss Alice Fern know how Wellington felt toward Mrs. Edwin Green.
Miss Fern said nothing but stared at the corner of the room that Edwin and Molly called: “The Poet’s Corner.” It was where all the poetry, ancient, medieval and modern, found shelf room. Over it hung Shakespeare’s epitaph, a framed rubbing from the tomb, the same that Edwin had always kept over his desk in his bachelor days to scare his housekeeper, Mrs. Brady, into sparing his precious papers.
“Good frend for Isus sake forbeare
To digg ye dust encloased heare
Bleste be ye man yt spares thes stones
And curst be he yt moves my bones.”
She kept her eyes so glued to the spot over the book shelves that finally all turned involuntarily to see what she was gazing on so intently. There it hung! There was no denying it or overlooking it: a great black cobweb that must have been there for several generations of spiders. No doubt it had taken all summer to weave such a mighty web and catch and hold so much grime.
Molly blushed furiously. For a moment, she almost hated Katy and she wholly hated Alice Fern. That elegant damsel had a supercilious expression on her aristocratic countenance that said as plainly as though she had given utterance to her thoughts:
“Author’s Club, indeed! She had much better clean her house.”
Molly was suddenly conscious that every corner was festooned with similar webs. The late afternoon sun was slanting in the windows and its searching rays had found and were showing up every grain of dust. The panes of glass were, to say the least, grimy.
