The boy picked up pebbles, shooting at first one object then another, apparently careless of what he was doing. He stopped a moment, looked up and down the alley and, selecting a pebble with care as the shepherd might have done when he prepared to kill the doughty giant, he took accurate aim at the electric light and the sound of shattered glass was the result. Then, snuggling close to the high board fence, he was around the corner before anyone saw him and the light was not known to be broken until night-fall. Even then nobody took the trouble to report it and the rear premises of the Hathaway house were in total darkness soon after sunset.
CHAPTER XV
THE TREATING TRYSTERS
It was astonishing how soon it was rumored abroad that Mary Louise, who had always been looked upon as an heiress, was almost penniless and was working for her living. The shock of her grandfather’s death and then of her young husband’s shipwreck and drowning had hardly been thoroughly discussed by the know-alls of the town before they had to begin on the remarkable fact that Colonel Hathaway had, in some mysterious way, disposed of his fortune. In the eyes of some, this loss of fortune was even more serious than that of the beloved grandfather and handsome, charming young husband.
“With plenty of money she could have got another husband, and as for a grandfather—well it was a good thing he died when he did or Mary Louise might have had to make a living for him too,” asserted a worldly, heartless Dorfield gossip.
“Plenty of money certainly softens the blow of bereavement,” sighed another whose rich trappings of woe proclaimed her as one who knew of what she spoke.
“They say she is making hats at that funny Higgledy Piggledy Shop,” proclaimed a third.
“Those girls do a right good business. I could hardly get along without the Higgledy Piggledies. I laugh about them, but I go to them for all kinds of things. That amusing little sandy-haired Miss O’Gorman told me that they never turned down anything they were asked to do. She said she would conduct a funeral if she got the order for it—and I believe she would. They do what they undertake very well too. I have never had anybody launder my best napkins so well. I am certainly going to give Mary Louise an order for a hat. She wears lovely ones herself and I am sure she can make them if she tries.”
The speaker was a wealthy young married woman who had the faculty of setting the fashion simply because she had the courage of her convictions and cared not at all what others thought. Her taste was good and her pocketbook long, and where she went her set was sure to follow.
Mary Louise was flooded with work the very first week of her new enterprise.