There was no mistaking the meaning of that. The way Mrs. Fenelby bowed over the bit of sewing she had taken up was evidence that she had suspicion in her mind. Kitty clasped her hands behind her back and laughed.
“You have been looking into my closet!” she declared. “You sit there and try to look innocent, and you know everything that I have, down to the last ribbon! Well, I just can’t afford to pay your old tariff. It would simply ruin me. And the men will never know, anyway. They don’t notice such things. I could wear a different dress every day, and they wouldn’t know it.”
“But I know it,” said Laura, reprovingly. “Do you think it is right, Kitty, to smuggle things into the house that way? Is it fair to Bobberty?”
“There!” exclaimed Kitty, dropping a jingling coin into Bobberts’ bank. “There is a quarter for him! That is every cent I can afford.”
“That wouldn’t pay the duty on one single shirt-waist,” said Laura, quietly.
“It wouldn’t,” admitted Kitty, frankly, bending over Laura and taking her face in her hands. She turned the face upward and looked in its eyes. Then she bent down and whispered in Laura’s ear, and laughed as a blush suffused Laura’s face.
“I was short of money,” said Laura with dignity, “and I mean to pay the duty as soon as I get my next week’s allowance. I simply had to have a new purse, and you coaxed me to buy it. It wasn’t smuggling at all.”
“Wasn’t it?” asked Kitty. “Then why did you ask me to leave it in my room, instead of showing it to Tom? Smuggler!”
Mrs. Fenelby arose and walked away. She turned to the kitchen and opened the door. She was just in time to see Bridget lower a bottle from her lips and hastily conceal it behind her skirts.
“Bridget!” she exclaimed sharply, with horror.