Harry, dear, do please conceal the newspaper in your handbag and carry it off with you,” said Isabella Marne as her sister entered the dining room. The sun shone in upon a window full of blooming plants, a bowl of daffodils glowed upon the table and the whole room looked as cheerful and buoyant, as dainty and pleasing as did the little lady in a pink and white muslin gown who was putting the last touches to the breakfast table. “Mother is coming down this morning,” she went on, “and I don’t want her to see it.”
“O, dear!” exclaimed Henrietta as she glanced at the head lines. “No, indeed, mother mustn’t see this. It would worry her too much. Have you read it, Bella? Was he hurt?”
“The account says Mr. Brand wasn’t hurt at all. But some of the others were—one rather badly, and Miss Andrews had her scalp cut. I hope it won’t spoil her beauty.”
“It must have been a narrow escape for them all,” Henrietta commented in shocked tones as she glanced down the column. “Poor Mildred! She will be wild with anxiety and jealousy! You know, Bella, she can’t bear for another woman to have a smile from him, or a little attention of any sort.”
“Sh-h-h! Mother’s coming! Do hide the paper quick and please talk real fast all through breakfast, so she won’t think to ask for it until after you’re gone. Mother would never, never let me go out with him in his auto again if she knew about this accident.”
“I don’t think you ought to, anyway, Bella. I wish you wouldn’t.”
“What harm does it do? And it gives me a little fun—about all I ever have, you know. Delia is having another season of introspection,” she went on laughingly as Mrs. Marne entered the room and all three seated themselves at the table. “It has lasted two days already and I’m trembling with anxiety as to what will happen next. She was in such a brown study this morning that she would have sugared the eggs and salted the coffee if I hadn’t been on the watch.”
“Do you think she’s making up her mind again to leave us?” said Mrs. Marne apprehensively.
“Oh, Delia’s all right, except when she gets uneasy about the scarcity of matrimonial chances in this neighborhood. She doesn’t really want to marry, at least not now, but she likes to think she could if she wanted to and she likes to see a new man once in a while, as she says, ‘to pass a word with.’ And I sympathize with her, even if I do have three letters a week from Warren.”
“Bella!” exclaimed her mother, but with more amusement than reproof in her voice.