“Of course you can!”
“Telegraph her not to come.”
“But she is already aboard the train,” objected Mr. Starkweather, gloomily.
“Then, I tell you,” snapped Flossie, who was the most unkind of the girls. “Don’t telegraph her at all. Don’t answer her message. Don’t send to the station to meet her. Maybe she won’t be too dense to take that hint.”
“Pooh! these wild and woolly Western girls!” grumbled Hortense. “I don’t believe she’ll know enough to stay away.”
“We can try it,” persisted Flossie.
“She ought to realize that we’re not dying to see her when we don’t come to the train,” said Belle.
“I—don’t—know,” mused their father.
“Now, Pa!” cried Flossie. “You know very well you don’t want that girl here.”
“No,” he admitted. “But—Ahem!—we have certain duties——”