The girl only laughed. “Here’s the horrid stripey stuff, hiding at the very bottom!” She laid the roll aside, and with a neat precision proceeded to put back all the things she had taken out, for Hildegarde knew, if not properly packed, the ottoman would overflow.
“Now, make haste,” urged her mother, “if anything so alien is possible to you. I’m certainly not going to read to you while you’re fussing about on the other side of the room.” Then, not deterred in her unswerving attempt to improve the shining hour, Mrs. Mar flung a quick look at the bent back of her husband, and proceeded to put in the time in clearing up one of his multitudinous misapprehensions.
“What I can’t forgive Jack Galbraith is his ingratitude to you.”
Again Mar moved a little in his creaking chair, but halted this side speech. Hildegarde, busily repacking, turned her blonde head toward her mother, saying: “Ingratitude! Why, he’s perfectly devoted to papa! That’s why I like Mr. Galbraith.”
“Devoted, is he? Well, he’s got odd ways of showing it. When he was a troublesome, inquisitive little pest, he used to reveal his devotion by coming twice every year to turn our house upside down, and get our boys into every conceivable mischief. Glad enough to plant himself here then, when nobody else would be bothered with him. But his devotion to your father doesn’t carry him the length of coming to see him nowadays. Why, it’s fourteen years since Jack Galbraith darkened these doors, and—”
“Well, I wouldn’t be surprised if he were to darken them very soon,” said Mr. Mar.
“What!” said Mrs. Mar, so surprised she allowed the rocking-chair to slow down.
Hildegarde stood transfixed, with the top of the ottoman arrested, half shut.
“Yes,” said Mr. Mar, steadily, and in complete good faith, as he slipped the diagram into the envelop. “I’m expecting him out here this spring.”
“Jack is coming!” Hildegarde said to her heart. “Wonderful Jack is coming! Dear Jack! Dear, dear Jack! Oh, the beautiful world!”