‘But why should I bring you in?’ asks Susan, who has a new queer fancy to be alone.
‘To do your hair, for one thing,’ says the tease of the family with delightful bonhomie. ‘Really, Susan, you can’t appear in public like this twice; and you know we are going to be photographed in— What is the hour now? Good gracious! it’s growing very late. We must run. Bonnie’s shirts can’t be done to-day, but I’ll help you with them to-morrow. Oh, there’s auntie—’
‘Susan, you must make haste,’ cries Miss Barry, hurrying round the corner. ‘There is no time to be lost. And, my dear, your hair! How fortunate you washed it to-day! When neatly done up it will look beautiful. Betty, I have been thinking of having you taken with your hat on. Your best hat—’
‘Oh, auntie!’ says poor Betty.
‘No; well, perhaps not. What do you think, Susan?’
‘I think she would look nicer without it,’ says Susan, in answer to an agonized glance from Betty. ‘And you, auntie? I think we ought to put a fresh bow in your cap; that side one is always falling down. You have a little bit of ribbon, haven’t you?’
‘Yes, I think so; in the top drawer,’ says Miss Barry. ‘Susan’—suddenly—‘how could you ask such an uncomfortable question before Mr. Crosby!’
‘What question?’ asks Susan, turning very red.
‘Why, as to whether I was going to have Bonnie photographed. I was quite taken aback,’ says Miss Barry, shaking her curls; ‘and, indeed, it was only the natural savoir faire that belongs to me’—to give Miss Barry’s Parisian accent would pass the wit of man—‘that enabled me to conquer the situation. You might be quite sure, Susan, that if I had the money Bonnie and Tommy too should have been sent to their dear uncle.’
‘I see, auntie. I am sorry,’ says Susan, with honest, deep regret.