Under the Law

by Edwina Stanton Babcock

But the waitress, with some sense of her mistress' anxiety, tried to soothe. "It ain't so late, Miss Bogart, and they had their steamer rugs. The girls is always careful; at least, Miss Sard is, drivin' the car and all. And then, too, they've took that there Colter with them."

Both women were evidently curious, and Cook paused, anxious to see how Miss Aurelia would receive this bit of news. Birth and breeding, however, still accomplish certain reserves with the observing ones of the kitchen. There was no further inquiry on Miss Aurelia's part.

"It must be tire trouble," concluded that lady worriedly. "I—they—that little depot car is rather uncertain. I have often heard Miss Sard speak of it. I wish——" But what she wished Miss Aurelia forbore to say. She started to go out of the kitchen, hesitated and turned back again. "Have plenty of hot water for chocolate, and the electric toaster and jam. They might be hungry."

As the lady of the house departed, the two serving-women looked significantly at each other.

"So, she's begun to worry already?" said Maggie, her own red face troubled. "She's seen what we seen. Oh, my! Wouldn't it be awful if Miss Sard was to take up with such a one, poor, motherless child? Wouldn't it be terrible, the Judge and all?"

But Dora shook her head. The girl, deepened by her own worries, read things more clearly in the great Human Book of which she was part. Mechanically she drifted around the kitchen in her absent-minded way of the last month. "It ain't that, it ain't that," she said doggedly. "It's that she's the New Kind of girl. Look how she's treated me. Look how she's cared about my Terry. It's the New Way, and now if that Colter feller is anything to her, it's that she's all caught up with pity for him. Down on his luck and all. She ain't thinking of nothing. It's the New Kind of girl! They don't keep thinkin' of fellers for marriage and all."

At a sound on the driveway, Dora went to the window.

"Automobiles," she announced. "That's them! My! but I'm glad." Both women breathed dramatic sighs of relief, and opened the kitchen door gladly to see Sard's hatless flying figure.

"Maggie—Dora," Sard was breathless, "don't fuss or make any noise, but run up and turn down Miss Minga's bed and get hot-water bottles and hot drinks. You see, she got into a bog and fainted. She may still be a little chilled. Anyway, she might have drowned, but for Colter. Here, this way, Colter."