Mother jumped up then, and said, "Tut, tut," what was she thinking of to talk like this when it couldn't do a bit of good, but only made matters worse. And she said that only went to prove how she was still keeping on tarnishing my happiness and bringing tears to my bright eyes, when certainly nothing of the whole wretched business was my fault.
She thrust the dress back into the trunk then, and shut the lid. Then she took me downstairs and bathed my eyes and face with cold water, and hers, too. And she began to talk and laugh and tell stories, and be gayer and jollier than I'd seen her for ever so long. And she was that way at dinner, too, until Grandfather happened to mention the reception to-morrow night, and ask if she was going.
She flushed up red then, oh, so red! and said, "Certainly not." Then she added quick, with a funny little drawing-in of her breath, that she should let Marie go, though, with her Aunt Hattie.
There was an awful fuss then. Aunt Hattie raised her eyebrows and threw up her hands, and said:
"That child—in the evening! Why, Madge, are you crazy?"
And Mother said no, she wasn't crazy at all; but it was the only chance Father would have to see me, and she didn't feel that she had any right to deprive him of that privilege, and she didn't think it would do me any harm to be out this once late in the evening. And she intended to let me go.
Aunt Hattie still didn't approve, and she said more, quite a lot more; but Grandfather spoke up and took my part, and said that, in his opinion, Madge was right, quite right, and that it was no more than fair that the man should have a chance to talk with his own child for a little while, and that he would be very glad to take me himself and look after me, if Aunt Hattie did not care to take the trouble.
Aunt Hattie bridled up at that, and said that that wasn't the case at all; that she'd be very glad to look after me; and if Mother had quite made up her mind that she wanted me to go, they'd call the matter settled.
And Mother said she had, and so it was settled. And I'm going. I'm to wear my new white dress with the pink rosebud trimming, and I'm so excited I can hardly wait till to-morrow night. But—oh, if only Mother would go, too!
* * * * *