“And only think, Harry,” Isabella groaned, as Delia left the room, “what a wonderful bargain that real estate agent made us think we were getting, just because there were so many restrictions there could never be anything or anybody objectionable within a mile of us!”
“I had an inspiration just in the nick of time,” Henrietta replied. “Mrs. Fenlow told me, when she was in the office the other day, waiting for Mr. Brand, that she is going to move her garage to this end of her property, which you know is just a block away, with an entrance from this street—she hoped it wouldn’t annoy us—and she said she was going to have a new chauffeur. And we can hope, Bella, that he’ll be young and tall and handsome and inclined to be flirtatious with good-looking maids who sometimes work in front door-yards nearby. Why, here’s Billikins! You naughty doggie, where have you been?”
A white fox terrier had bounded into the room and was giving her exuberant greeting, having stopped first to drop at her feet a rag-doll that he carried in his mouth. “There, that will do,” she laughed as he sprang to her lap, and thence to her shoulder and testified his overflowing affection with voice and tongue. “Get down now and take care of your babykins!”
“I must go now,” she declared, and, rising, began putting on hat and coat. “I’ll just run upstairs and kiss mother good-bye again. If anything should happen, Bella, or should you want me to come home for any reason, you can ’phone me at the office until five o’clock, and after that at Dr. Annister’s. Mrs. Annister, you know, is going to chaperon Mildred and me. Wasn’t it sweet of her to ask me to stay all night with them!”
Five minutes later she came hurrying downstairs again, and Isabella, waiting for her at the front door, put the suitcase into her hand, pressed an arm about her waist, and gave her a farewell greeting.
“Have just as good a time as you can, Harry, dear,” she said gaily, “so you’ll have all the more to tell mother and me tomorrow night!”
The morning sun shone down through the golden autumn foliage of the maple trees that lined the street, and now irradiated Henrietta’s figure and then dyed it somberly as she passed with rapid step through open space and shadow. Isabella watched her progress down the quiet road toward the avenue, half a dozen blocks away, whence came the clang of street cars and the rattle of traffic. But the girl turned now and then and cast an eager glance in the other direction.
“I’m so glad she could go tonight,” Isabella was thinking. “She works so hard and she doesn’t have many pleasures—neither do I! But I don’t mind—very much!” She cast another glance up the street and caught sight of a smallish man’s figure bending one-sidedly under a burden of other people’s joys and sorrows as he passed in and out of the gateways in the next block. A pleased smile brightened her face and she turned back to watch her sister’s progress.
“There! She was just in time to catch that car! She’s just a brick, Harry is! What a funny notion about Felix Brand! If it was little Bella, now—” She threw up her head saucily and danced a step or two as she faced about to see how near the postman had come.