“Oh, I don’t know,” replied Mrs. Blair, “she seems so quiet, that’s all.”
“Lavinia is not a girl given to excitement or demonstration,” said the judge, lapsing easily into the manner of speech he had cultivated on the bench.
“No, that’s so,” assented Mrs. Blair. “But she’s always cheerful and bright.”
“Is she gloomy?”
“No, I wouldn’t exactly call it that, but she seems preoccupied—rather wistful I should say, yes—wistful.” She seemed pleased to have found the right word.
“Oh, she’s all right. That picnic last night may have fatigued her. I presume there was dancing.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know that we should let her go out that way.” The judge took off his glasses and twirled them by their black cord while he gazed across the street, apparently at some dogs that were tumbling each other about in the Chenowiths’ yard. The judge had a subconscious anxiety that they would get into Mrs. Chenowith’s flower beds.
“You and I used to go to them; they never hurt us,” argued Mrs. Blair.
“No, I suppose not. But then—that was different.”