“Be sure and smoke.”
Thorne laughed, as he lighted his cigar and stepped out onto the porch, and thence into the darkness of the garden path.
“Oh,” said Caroline to herself, “he is splendid. If Wilfred were only like that!” she pouted. “But then—our engagement’s broken off anyway, so what’s the difference. If he were like that—I’d—— No!—I don’t think I’d——”
Her soliloquy was broken by the entrance of Mrs. Varney, who came slowly down the room.
“Why, Caroline dear! What are you talking about, all to yourself?”
“Oh—just—I was just saying, you know—that—why, I don’t know what I was—— Do you think it is going to rain?” she returned in great confusion.
“Dear me, child; I haven’t thought about it. Why, what have you got on? Is that a new dress, and in Richmond?”
“A new dress? Well, I should think so. These are my great-grandmother’s mother’s wedding clothes. Aren’t they lovely? Just in the nick of time, too. I was on my very last rags, or, rather, they were on me, and I didn’t know what to do. Mother gave me a key and told me to open an old horsehair trunk in the attic, and these were in it.” She seized the corners of her dress and pirouetted a step or two forward to show it off, and then dropped the older woman an elaborate, old-fashioned courtesy. “I ran over to show them to Edith,” she resumed. “Where is she? I want her to come over to my house.”
“Upstairs, I think. I am afraid she can’t come. I have just come from her room,” Mrs. Varney continued as Caroline started to interrupt, “and she means to stay here.”
“I will see about that,” said Caroline, running out of the room.