"Why do you waste time over it, I wonder," said Mrs. Leighton. "Instead of moping Jean might be golfing, and Elma and Betty having tea at Miss Annie's; with nobody at all being nice to your poor old mother."
It dawned on them how selfish they might all be.
"Oh, mummy," cried three reproachful voices.
"Well, Elma likes Miss Grace much better than she does me, and Betty likes her rabbits, and Jean despises me because I don't play golf. I lead a very lonely life," said Mrs. Leighton.
"Oh, mummy!"
"My idea, when I came into your room," said Mrs. Leighton, "was to propose that we might walk into town and get Jean's new hat, and take tea at Crowther's, and drive home if my poor old leg won't hold out for walking both ways. But we've wasted so much time in talking about Mabel----"
"Oh, mummy--Your bonnet, your veil, and your gloves, and do be quick, mummy," cried Elma. "We're very sorry about Mabel."
They flew in self-reproachful manner to getting her off to her room and making their own things fly.
"After all, we are a beastly set of prigs," called out Jean to Elma. "And I think I ought to have a biscuit-coloured straw, don't you?"
It was one of a series of encounters with which the new tactics of Mabel invaded the family. Mrs. Leighton's gentle rule was sorely tried for quite a long time in this way. Although she reasoned with the younger girls on the side of Mabel, she took Mabel severely to task for her behaviour over the flower show.