“You always feel that way, Miss Watkins,” screamed Mitchell. “It is we that are the blind and the halt. You are ever fresh, but we falter and faint. You see it’s you that go out, but it’s we that you get back. You—”
“We could go to one vaudeville, anyway,” said Aunt Mary abstractedly; “an’ if we saw any places that looked lively we could stop a few minutes there on our way back. I’ve never been into lots of things here.”
Jack looked at Mitchell this time.
“I’m sorry, Miss Watkins,” he roared, “but I’ll have to go home, anyhow. You see, I’m not used to the lively life which has been enlivening us all this week and, being weakly in my knees, needs must look out.”
Aunt Mary looked very disappointed.
“Then Jack and I’ll go, too,” she said, “but oh! dear, I do hate to waste my stay in the city sleepin’ so much. I can sleep all I want after I get home, but—” she paused, and then said with deep feeling, “Well, you don’t understand about Lucinda an’ so you don’t understand about anythin’.”
Both the young men felt truly regretful as they put her into the carriage for the return trip. Her deep enjoyment was so genuine and naive that they sympathized with her feelings when cut off from it.
But it was best that this one night should pass unimproved, and so all five threw themselves into their respective beds with equal zest and slept—and slept—and slept.
Chapter Seventeen
Aunt Mary’s Night About Town
The next day came up out of the ocean fair and warm, and when it drew toward later afternoon no more propitious night for setting forth ever happened.