"I don't know, dear. Is it a very important meeting?"
"It must be," replied Letty, "or mother wouldn't have it. Everything she has is important." As the door opened, she inquired of the servant, "Moses, do you think this is a very important meeting?"
Moses, a young light-coloured negro, answered solemnly, "Hit looks dat ar way ter me, Miss Letty, caze Patrick's jes' done fotched up de las' plate uv puffs. Dose puffs wuz gwine jes' as fast ez you kin count de las' time I tuck a look at um, en de ladies dey wuz all a-settin' roun' in va' yous attitudes en eatin' um up like dey tasted moughty good."
"Then I'm going in," said the child promptly. "You come with me, Miss Meade. Mother won't mind half so much if you are with me." And grasping Caroline's hand she led the way to the drawing-room. "I hope they have left one," she whispered anxiously, "but meetings always seem to make people so hungry."
In the back drawing-room, where empty cups and plates were scattered about on little tables, Angelica was sitting in a pink and gold chair that vaguely resembled a throne. She wore a street gown of blue velvet, and beneath a little hat of dark fur, her hair folded softly on her temples. At the first glance Caroline could see that she was tired and nervous, and her pensive eyes seemed to plead with the gaily chattering women about her. "Of course, if you really think it will help the cause," she was saying deprecatingly; then as Letty entered, she broke off and held out her arms. "Did you have a good time, darling?"
The child went slowly forward, shaking hands politely with the guests while her steady gaze, so like her father's, sought the tea table. "May I have a puff and a tart too, mother?" she asked as she curtseyed to Mrs. Ashburton.
"No, only one, dear, but you may choose."
"Then I'll choose a puff because it is bigger." She was a good child, and when the tart was forbidden her, she turned her back on the plate with a determined gesture. "I saw the man, mother—the one with the baby. He was in the lane."
"I know, dear. He came to ask your father to take him back in the works. Perhaps if you were to go into the library and ask him very gently, he would do it. It is the case I was telling you about, a most distressing one," explained Angelica to Mrs. Ashburton. "Of course David must have reason on his side or he wouldn't take the stand that he does. I suppose the man does drink and stir up trouble, but we women have to think of so much besides mere justice. We have to keep close to the human part that men are so apt to overlook." There was a writing tablet on her knee, and while she spoke, she leaned earnestly forward, and made a few straggling notes with a yellow pencil which was blunt at the point. Even her efficiency—and as a chairman she was almost as efficient as Mrs. Ashburton—was clothed in sweetness. As she sat there, holding the blunt pencil in her delicate, blue-veined hand, she appeared to be bracing herself, with a tremendous effort of will, for some inexorable demand of duty. The tired droop of her figure, the shadow under her eyes, the pathetic little lines that quivered about her mouth—these things, as well as the story of her loveless marriage, awakened Caroline's pity. "She bears it so beautifully," she thought, with a rush of generous emotion. "I have never seen any one so brave and noble. I believe she never thinks of herself for a minute."
"I always feel," observed Mrs. Ashburton, in her logical way which was trying at times, "that a man ought to be allowed to attend to his own business."