Jeannette narrowed her lids and eyed her skeptically. She was pleased, nevertheless. Her niece’s excessive ebullition and high spirits never failed to divert her; she liked the child’s company; the girl had a great respect for her worldly judgment, much more than she had for her mother’s or father’s, and the older woman found it an engaging business to expound her theories of life and her views of affairs to the younger one.
“I’m not going until after lunch,” she said, still with a vague hesitancy in her manner.
“I don’t mind waiting a bit.”
“Can you amuse yourself until noon? I have some office work to do that will take me about an hour. Miss Alexander’s gone to church but she’ll be back directly.”
“Could I make some egg muffins? We could have ’em for lunch, an’ they’re awfully nice and I’m really good at them.”
Jeannette noted the child’s palpitant eagerness again with mild amusement.
“I think that would be lovely,” she consented, her fine eyes twinkling. “But don’t get things out there in a mess; Miss Alexander won’t like it if she comes home and finds everything upset.”
“I’ll be ever and ever so careful,” agreed Etta, already skipping toward the kitchen.
Jeannette took herself back to the cold front room, seldom used by either herself or Beatrice, and brought her thoughts once more to the construction of the half-finished circular letter which must be ready for the composing room early Monday morning.
She heard Beatrice come in presently, and an hour later, as she was completing the last revision of her work, Etta appeared breathlessly to announce lunch.