For Bess had determined on a bold stroke. The air inside the room was warm and heavy with the fragrance of roses. Outside, all was bright and bracing, for an inch or two of snow had fallen the night before, and the air after the storm was clear and sweet. Across the street, two rosy-cheeked urchins were having a grand snowball fight, and Bess only wished that she and Fred could join them. She heard their shouts of laughter as a particularly large snowball struck one of them, just as he was stooping for more ammunition, and half the snow was scattered down his neck.
The next moment she had tapped at Mrs. Allen's door.
"Come in," said a languid voice, and in she went.
Mrs. Allen, in a light wrapper, lay on a sofa, while Mary was kneeling by her side, industriously polishing the nails of her mistress.
"Mrs. Allen," said Bess abruptly, "may Fred and I have the coupé this afternoon?"
"Does he want to go out for a drive at last?" asked his mother.
"No, he doesn't," replied Bess, "but I want to have him go, and I think that if the carriage were all at the door, I could get him started. May I try?"
"Of course you can have the carriage, Bessie; (a little more on the thumb, Mary) but why do you tease him, if he doesn't want to go? It won't be any pleasure to him, and if he is more comfortable at home, why not let him do as he likes?"
Bess dropped into a chair, and wrinkled her brows with exasperation.
"Why, don't you see, Mrs. Allen," she said, "the boy can't spend all his life in that one room. He must go out of it sometime, and the longer he waits the harder it will be for him. He ought to have been out weeks ago, for he needs the fresh air, and he is getting just blue and morbid from staying alone in the house all this time."