“I don’t know. Perhaps I ought not to let her,” returned Miss Frink, and her companion saw her hold her lip under her teeth to still its quivering. “I seem to be sponsoring her, you see.”
“My dear Miss Frink, don’t you worry,” returned Ogden, speaking low but emphatically, for they were still standing at the foot of the stairs. “Don’t worry a minute. She won’t stick to that teaching a month.”
Miss Frink gave him a rather tremulous smile of gratitude; and, before Ogden took his hat to run out on his errand, he went up to Hugh’s room where the latter was busy with his books.
“Say, boy,” he said, “I’ve just come from Miss Frink, and she had just come from a talk with your friend Ally; and I tell you she was all in.”
Hugh wheeled around in his chair and fixed a troubled look on his friend.
“Yes, Miss Frink looked old and tired. Her pep was gone. Mrs. Re—Lumbard is leaving to-day, it seems.”
“Leaving Farrandale?” asked Hugh, with an eagerness which his friend misunderstood.
“No; don’t be afraid. I think Miss Frink is worrying about her being turned loose among the Farrandale lambs; and I just want to say, Hugh, that if you continue to pal with Mrs. Lumbard you’ll make a great mistake from every point of view. You owe it to Miss Frink to ease off and not encourage her. Miss Frink doesn’t want her coming here.”
Hugh continued his troubled stare. “I hope you didn’t tell her the damaging thing you told me—about the courts.”
“Of course not,” said Ogden impatiently; “but Miss Frink has the woman’s number all right. I don’t know what their good-bye talk was like, but this fine aunt of yours came out of it wounded. I tell you she was wounded; and you want to think of her and protect her, boy.”