Ben patted her arm. "Don't speak so loud, you'll wake the baby. You buy the things, Mehit. I'll see that they're paid for."
"How your mother'd love that!"
"My mother will have nothing to do with it."
"Why, you ain't even self-supportin' yet," declared Miss Upton bluntly. "'T ain't anything to your discredit, of course; you ain't ready," she added kindly.
Ben's steady eyes kept on looking into hers and his low voice replied: "My father died suddenly, you remember. He had destroyed one will and not yet made another. I have money of my own, quite a lot of it, to tell the truth. Now if you'd just let me fly you over to town—"
Miss Mehitable started. "Fly me over, you lunatic!"
"Well, let us go in the train, then. I'll go with you. I know in a general way just what she ought to wear. Soft silky things and a—a droopy hat."
"Ben Barry, you've taken leave o' your senses. Don't you know that everything I get her, that poor child will want to pay for—work, and earn the money? If I buy anything for her, it's goin' to be somethin' she can pay for before she's ninety."
Ben sighed. "All right, Mehit! have it your own way, only get a move. I can't take her out till she gets a hat."
"You haven't got to take her out," retorted Miss Upton decidedly. "She don't want to go out with you. It was only last night she was sayin' she wished she might never see you again."