“She’s the bravest, sincerest girl in the world. She’s braver than Molly Breckenridge, and I like her immensely. All the boys at Brentnor think she’s fine, and we all hope some grand romance will come out of the facts of her parentage. She doesn’t come of any illiterate, common stock, Mamma. You may be sure of that. So I hope you’ll be nice and not—not too Stark-ish toward her, please!”
So this was the girl who had saved life. Of that grim teacher opposite and, later, of a farmer’s son out of a tree where he was hanging. Very creditable, of course, though it couldn’t affect herself, Mrs. Ebenezer Vavasour-Stark, and she fixed her attention elsewhere.
It was due to the Judge that she altered her opinion of her present quarters so far as to decide upon remaining in them; and to make the best of the whole trip, “which you know is but a prolonged picnic. As for air and health and strength, you could find nothing better the world over, my dear Madam,” he had said.
After that first dinner also she had a talk with her son; which resulted in his displaying a common sense that did him credit.
“Look here, Mamma. Let’s just pack all these over-fine togs in the trunks and leave them here to be sent to us when wanted. All we shall need, I fancy, is a suit-case a-piece with the plainest things we own. Even that ‘fancy’ hunter’s suit I bought is ridiculous. The Judge uses the oldest sort of things—‘regular rags,’ Molly says; and I—I may be a fool but I don’t like to look like one! Do it, Mamma, to please me. And let’s put our ‘society’ manners into the trunks with the clothes. Let’s live, for these few weeks, as if we were real poor—as poor as Dolly or Miss Greatorex. I don’t believe even that lady has any money to speak of and as for Dorothy, she hasn’t a cent. Not a cent.”
“How do you know that, Montmorency? Are you on such intimate terms with that foundling that she confides the state of her finances to you? If so, she is probably hinting for presents.”
“Umm. Might be. Didn’t look like it though when I proposed just now to buy her one of those Indian baskets on sale in the lobby. She wouldn’t take one, though Molly took all I wanted to give—and more. That girl hasn’t any scruples about having a good time and letting anybody pay that wants to.”
“That, son, is a proof of good birth and breeding, she has always been accustomed to having her wants supplied and takes it as a matter of course. But, Monty darling, you must be good to Mamma. She doesn’t feel as if she had come to a ‘Paradise of a place,’ as you told me I would find it. Yet if it pleases you to see your mother dressed like a servant why, of course, for your sake I’ll consent. But I warn you, no skylarking with underbred people or I shall take you straight home.”
This little conversation shows that Mrs. Hungerford was right when she informed her brother on that same evening:
“We made a blunder when we allowed the Starks to join our personal party. They fit into it about as well as a round peg in a square hole. The woman—Well, she may be high-born and rich but I don’t want our Molly to copy her notions. She’s not nice, either, to poor Miss Isobel nor Dorothy. The result is that Miss Greatorex has grown more difficult and ‘stiff’ than she was in the beginning. Such a pity when she’s just begun to get softer and more human!”