“Sure,” this girl said to the cook, “if I didn’t dress better nor her when I went out, I’d wait till afther dark, so I would!”
Helen heard this, too. But she was a girl who could stick to her purpose. Criticism should not move her, she determined; she would continue to play her part.
“Mr. Starkweather is in the den, Miss,” said the housekeeper, meeting Helen on the stairs. “He has asked for you.”
Mrs. Olstrom was a very grim person, indeed. If she had shown the girl from the ranch some little kindliness the night before, she now hid it all very successfully.
Helen returned to the lower floor and sought that room in which she had had her first interview with her relatives. Mr. Starkweather was alone. He looked more than a little disturbed; and of the two he was the more confused.
“Ahem! I feel that we must have a serious talk together, Helen,” he said, in his pompous manner. “It—it will be quite necessary—ahem!”
“Sure!” returned the girl. “Glad to. I’ve got some serious things to ask you, too, sir.”
“Eh? Eh?” exclaimed the gentleman, worried at once.
“You fire ahead, sir,” said Helen, sitting down and crossing one knee over the other in a boyish fashion. “My questions will wait.”
“I—ahem!—I wish to know who suggested your coming here to New York?”