"Yes! And you'll get attached to her!"
Sue did not guess at the real fear that lay behind her mother's words. "But you want me to, don't you? I'm attached to a hundred others there already. And you'll love Barbara, too."
"There! You see?—Wherever a young one is concerned, you utterly forget your mother!"
"Why—why——" Sue put a helpless hand to her forehead. "Forget you?
I don't see how the little one would make any difference——"
Farvel interrupted, opening the double door a few inches to look in.
"Miss Susan,—just a minute?"
"Can I help?" Without waiting for the protest to be expected from her mother, Sue hurried out.
Mrs. Milo stayed where she was, staring toward the back-parlor. "O-o-o-oh! To the Rectory!" she stormed. "It's abominable! I won't have it! Such an insult!—The creature!"
Someone entered from the hall—noiselessly. It was Tottie, wearing her best manners, and with a countenance from which, obviously, she had extracted, as it were, some of the rosy color worn at her earlier appearance. She had smoothed her bobbed red tresses, too, and a long motor veil of a lilac tinge made less obtrusive the décolleté of the tea-gown.
"Young woman," began Mrs. Milo, speaking low, and with an air of confidence calculated to flatter; "this—this Miss Crosby;" (she gave a jerky nod of her bonnet to indicate the present whereabouts of that person) "you've known her some time?"
A wise smile spread upon Miss St. Clair's derouged face. She dropped her lashes and lifted them again. "Long," she replied significantly, "and intimate."