"You mustn't talk like that. Everything will come out all right, of course. But I think you are wrong not to have told your daughter. Her place is here at your side. She ought to be told even if only in justice to her. If you don't tell her someone else will, or, what's worse, she'll hear of it through the newspapers."
"Ah, I never thought of that!" exclaimed the judge, visibly perturbed at the suggestion about the newspapers.
"Don't you agree with me?" demanded Stott, appealing to Mrs. Rossmore, who emerged from the house at that instant. "Don't you think your daughter should be informed of what has happened?"
"Most assuredly I do," answered Mrs. Rossmore determinedly. "The judge wouldn't hear of it, but I took the law into my own hands. I've cabled for her."
"You cabled for Shirley?" cried the judge incredulously. He was so unaccustomed to seeing his ailing, vacillating wife do anything on her own initiative and responsibility that it seemed impossible. "You cabled for Shirley?" he repeated.
"Yes," replied Mrs. Rossmore triumphantly and secretly pleased that for once in her life she had asserted herself. "I cabled yesterday. I simply couldn't bear it alone any longer."
"What did you say?" inquired the judge apprehensively.
"I just told her to come home at once. To-morrow we ought to get an answer."
Stott meantime had been figuring on the time of Shirley's probable arrival. If the cablegram had been received in Paris the previous evening it would be too late to catch the French boat. The North German Lloyd steamer was the next to leave and it touched at Cherbourg. She would undoubtedly come on that. In a week at most she would be here. Then it became a question as to who should go to meet her at the dock. The judge could not go, that was certain. It would be too much of an ordeal. Mrs. Rossmore did not know the lower part of the city well, and had no experience in meeting ocean steamships. There was only one way out—would Stott go? Of course he would and he would bring Shirley back with him to Massapequa. So during the next few days while Stott and the judge toiled preparing their case, which often necessitated brief trips to the city, Mrs. Rossmore, seconded with sulky indifference by Eudoxia, was kept busy getting a room ready for her daughter's arrival. Eudoxia, who came originally from County Cork, was an Irish lady with a thick brogue and a husky temper. She was amiable enough so long as things went to her satisfaction, but when they did not suit her she was a termagant. She was neither beautiful nor graceful, she was not young nor was she very clean. Her usual condition was dishevelled, her face was all askew, and when she dressed up she looked like a valentine. Her greatest weakness was a propensity for smashing dishes, and when reprimanded she would threaten to take her traps and skidoo. This news of the arrival of a daughter failed to fill her with enthusiasm. Firstly, it meant more work; secondly she had not bargained for it. When she took the place it was on the understanding that the family consisted only of an elderly gentleman and his wife, that there was practically no work, good wages, plenty to eat, with the privilege of an evening out when she pleased. Instead of this millennium she soon found Stott installed as a permanent guest and now a daughter was to be foisted on her. No wonder hard working girls were getting sick and tired of housework!
As already hinted there was no unhealthy curiosity among Massapequans regarding their new neighbors from the city but some of the more prominent people of the place considered it their duty to seek at least a bowing acquaintance with the Rossmores by paying them a formal visit. So the day following the conversation on the porch when the judge and Stott had gone to the city on one of their periodical excursions, Mrs. Rossmore was startled to see a gentleman of clerical appearance accompanied by a tall, angular woman enter their gate and ring the bell.