“I fancy she is some beau grabber,” suggested Pauline.
“Why did you call on her if you didn’t like her?” asked Gertrude.
“Heavens above!” ejaculated Elizabeth. “Perhaps I had some business to attend to—or perhaps I didn’t,” remembering suddenly that her business with Mrs. Markle was of a delicate nature and not to be mentioned outside of the bosom of the Higgledy-Piggledy.
“What business?” insisted Gertrude.
“The kind one gets rich attending to, my own,” said Elizabeth. She knew she was rude, but why couldn’t her family let her alone? She had worked hard all day typing the novel for the would-be author; writing an obituary notice for a bereaved gentleman who had just lost his fourth wife; and polishing up a paper for an aspiring leader of a literary club. She was tired now and would have liked to go to her room and be quiet for a few moments. How different life was at the shop! There everybody was busy and nobody had time to be poking her nose in everybody’s business.
“I fancy your business was running after Billy McGraw,” continued Gertrude. Since rudeness was the order of the day, she was fully capable of doing her share to keep the ball rolling.
Elizabeth’s inclination was to answer with increased acrimony but she thought better of it and merely left the room, even refraining from slamming the door, which was always a good way to get the last word in an argument in the Wright household.
“Why, why, can’t they let me alone?” she asked herself when she got to the room which she shared with Margaret. She vaguely wished she had kept her temper and not been so quick to take it for granted that her sisters were interfering.
“They are so idle is the reason they ask so many questions, I am sure,” she argued with herself. “I should feel sorry for them because they don’t know what fun it is to be busy. I’m going to try to be nicer and bring home something in the way of news that will be helpful to them instead of flying off the handle the way I did. I do wish though that Mother wouldn’t entertain the Markles. Of course, she is doing it to encourage Billy McGraw. Mother’s methods are too apparent for him who runs not to read. Only suppose the Markles come and find things here they want.” Here Elizabeth had to giggle a bit to herself. “They might go off with Father’s first editions and the great-grandfather forks, to say nothing of the silver slop basin in which George Washington is supposed to have drunk his toddy. What am I to do? I shouldn’t let Mother entertain such persons, but there is no stopping her short of divulging my real reason for not having them and that would be queering Josie’s game. Well, maybe it will teach Mother a lesson. Of course if anything does happen they will blame me for being the one to introduce them to such persons.”
The outcome was that the Wrights did entertain the Markles and Billy McGraw on the same evening, although Elizabeth put in one more earnest protest which had no more effect than to raise the ire of her mother and sisters, who declared she was a dog in the manger. Evidently she did not want Billy McGraw herself, but she didn’t want any of her sisters to have him.