"Not when she's being one herself," returned Madge. "She's a music teacher! Who can blame her? I know if I were one, I'd be a murderess too.—Yes, they are over there, and so is Linda Barry. I hope neither of you is attached to her, for I think she's the coldest, most impossible girl I ever met."
"Surely you know of her sorrow?" said Whitcomb, and his expression was a reproach to the girl's drawling speech.
"Oh, so you are attached! Forgive me, won't you? All the same, if I'm ever in mourning I'm determined not to freeze my sister-woman and slink away from her into by-ways."
"Madge, dear," warned Mrs. Lindsay.
"Oh, Mother and Miss Barry have had some traffic over ferns; and Mrs. Porter's offishness is different from Linda Barry's. She's a queen, Mrs. Porter is. I'd take lessons of her just for the companionship, only that she'd think I thought I had a voice."
"And so you have, a very nice one," chirped Mamma.
"Her goose is such a swan," exclaimed Madge, with a lazy smile. "No one should be without a mother."
"Shoo, all of you," said Whitcomb, motioning with his hands. "I want King to go to sleep."
The convalescent's eyes closed as his head rested against the pillow of his reclining chair. "There goes Whitcomb, again," he announced through his nose. "Baby always goes to sleep in his carriage when he hits the oxygen, you know."
"No, no, Mr. King. Cabbage, cabbage," exclaimed Madge in reminder, as she jumped off the rickety steps.