Bonny-Gay made a funny little grimace, then leaned sidewise and hugged her friend.
“Do the Dingy street folks know better how to behave than the Place folks, missy?”
“Yes, Bonny-Gay, I think they do”; answered Mary Jane with dignity. For she had now been associated with the McClure household long enough to get a fair idea of the proprieties; and she was sure that driving up to the doors of strange houses and inquiring their owners’ names, was not one. However, she could do nothing further, for it was Bonny-Gay’s carriage and not hers.
“Drive in, please.”
So the phaeton turned into the pretty driveway, bordered with shrubs, and around the lawn by a freshly prepared curve to the very front door itself. Mary Jane had turned her head away and utterly refused to look. She was amazed at Bonny-Gay, her hitherto model, but she’d be a party to no such impertinence; not she.
Then her head was suddenly seized by her mate’s hands and her face forced about toward that unknown doorway.
“Look, Mary Jane Bump! You shall look! You shall. If you don’t, you’ll break my heart. Look quick!”
Mary Jane’s lids flew open. Then she nearly tumbled off the seat. The Gray Gentleman was coming down the steps, smiling and holding out his hand. Smiling and calling, too:
“They’ve come, Mrs. Bump! They’ve come!” Mary Jane, in her newly acquired ideas of etiquette, wondered to hear such a quiet person speak so loudly or jest upon such themes. She had instantly decided that this was some friend’s country house, where he, too, was visiting. Odd that his hostess’ name should be like her own.
But all her primness vanished when out from that charming cottage flew a woman with a baby in her arms. A woman in a print gown, clear-starched as only one laundress could do it, and a baby so big and round and rosy he had to be spelled with a capital letter.