April regarded her young sister for a moment without speaking.
“Mother said I was to help with your hair. I knew you wouldn’t let me touch your precious yellow wig,” Harriot went on. “But it wasn’t a bit of use my telling her that. I suppose I might just as well go down again.”
“If mother sent you up here, you’d better stay,” April remarked knowingly. “Merry can go as soon as I’m laced.”
“All right,” agreed the good-natured Harriot, “though I don’t see why—. Mammy says you’ll have a red nose ‘sho’ as you’he bohn’ if you wear your things so tight.”
“And she says you won’t have ‘a toof in yoh haid’ if you eat so much poundcake,” April retorted with a laugh. “You can go down to Old Miss, Merry,” she added to the maid.
But the door had hardly closed upon Merry when April turned a serious face to her sister.
“What were you blabbing that made mother send you up here?” she demanded.
Harriot was genuinely surprised and injured.
“Not one earthly thing,” she declared stoutly. “Corinne and I went to the dêpot to hear the news and I had just begun to tell mother about it. I didn’t say a thing in the world.”
“What is the news?” April inquired anxiously. “Has Rosecrans—”