"Oh, Miss Meade, I've been dying to see you and hear news of Letty!" exclaimed the young woman in her vivacious manner. She was wearing a hat of royal purple, with a sweeping wing which intensified the brilliant dusk of her hair and eyes.
"She is quite well again, though of course we are very careful. I came in to look for some small artificial flowers for a doll's hat. We are dressing a doll."
"It must have been a dreadful strain, and Cousin Matty Timberlake told mother she didn't know what they would have done without you. I think it is wonderful the way you keep looking so well."
"Oh, the work is easy," responded Caroline gravely.
"I am sure you are a perfect blessing to them all, especially to poor Angelica," pursued Daisy, in her rippling, shallow voice. Then, in the very centre of the crowded street, regardless of the pedestrians streaming by on either side of her, she added on a higher note: "Have you heard what everybody is saying about the way David Blackburn behaved? Robert insists he doesn't believe a word of it; but then Robert never believes anything except the Bible, so I told him I was going to ask you the very first chance I got. There isn't a bit of use trying to find out anything from Cousin Matty Timberlake because she is so awfully close-mouthed, and I said to Robert only this morning that I was perfectly sure you would understand why I wanted to know. It isn't just gossip. I am not repeating a thing that I oughtn't to; but the stories are all over town, and if they aren't true, I want to be in a position to deny them."
"What are the stories?" asked Caroline, and she continued immediately, before she was submerged again in the bubbling stream of Daisy's narrative, "Of course it isn't likely that I can help you. This is the first time I have been in town since Letty's illness."
"But that is exactly why you ought to know." As Daisy leaned nearer her purple wing brushed Caroline's face. "It is all over Richmond, Miss Meade," her voice rang out with fluting sweetness, "that David Blackburn kept Letty's condition from Angelica because he was so crazy about her being in those tableaux. They say he simply made her go, and that she never knew the child was in danger until she got back in the night. Mrs. Mallow declares she heard it straight from an intimate friend of the family, and somebody, who asked me not to mention her name, told me she knew positively that Doctor Boland hadn't any use in the world for David Blackburn. She said, of course, he hadn't said anything outright, but she could tell just by the way he looked. Everybody is talking about it, and I said to Robert at breakfast that I knew you could tell exactly what happened because we heard from Cousin Matty that you never left Letty's room."
"But why should Mr. Blackburn have wanted her to go? Why should he care?" Though Daisy's sprightly story had confused her a little, Caroline gathered vaguely that somebody had been talking too much, and she resolved that she would not contribute a single word to the gossip.
"Oh, he has always been wild about Angelica's being admired. Don't you remember hearing her say at that committee meeting at Briarlay that her husband liked her to take part in public affairs? I happen to know that he has almost forced her to go into things time and again when Doctor Boland has tried to restrain her. Mother thinks that is really why he married Angelica, because he was so ambitious, and he believed her beauty and charm would help him in the world. I suppose it must have been a blow to him to find that she couldn't tolerate his views—for she is the most loyal soul on earth—and there are a great many people who think that he voted with the Republicans in the hope of an office, and that he got mad when he didn't get one and turned Independent——"
The flood of words was checked for a moment, while the chauffeur came to ask for a direction, and in the pause Caroline remarked crisply, "I don't believe one word—not one single word of these stories."