Then Mrs. Porter had her turn, and the eyes of both women grew wet in their long embrace.
"Well, give me some place to sit down," said Miss Barry desperately. She looked around and found a piazza chair, into which she dropped. "In all my born days I never saw such a girl. She's either got to hang a man to a sour apple tree, or else she's got to marry him!"
Over at the homestead Bertram King was winning golden laurels from his self-appointed caretaker.
At the supper table his novel vivacity and good appetite gave him the appearance of complete recovery.
"See here," remarked Whitcomb, "solitary confinement is evidently all you've been needing. We'll clear out soon again. Even you went away, didn't you, Luella?" The speaker turned to Miss Benslow, whom on his return he had discovered scrambling about to get supper in her robes of state. She was now waiting on table and blessing Jerry Holt for his dilatoriness in bringing the Lindsays home.
"I did step out for a spell," she returned in her best manner; "but I guess I warn't missed," she added coyly. "Miss Linda Barry gave Mr. King his tea."
"Really!" drawled Madge Lindsay. "How cleverly she chose the right moment for her first call."
"There are cats in the room," announced Whitcomb, helping himself to honey.
Madge lifted her eyebrows and made a defiant grimace.