“She is quite distracted,” Agnes said, on arriving home, repeating Aunt Sarah’s phrase. “Quite distracted.”
“But if she is extracted,” Dot proposed, “why doesn’t she have Dr. Forsyth come to see her?”
“Mercy, Dot!” admonished Tess. “Distracted, not extracted. You do so mispronounce the commonest words.”
“I don’t, either,” the smaller girl denied vigorously. “I don’t mispernounce any more than you do, Tess Kenway! You just make believe you know so much.”
“Dot! Mispernounce! There you go again!”
This was a sore subject, and Ruth attempted to change the trend of the little girls’ thoughts by suggesting that Mrs. McCall needed some groceries from a certain store situated away across town.
“If you can get Uncle Rufus to harness Scalawag you girls can drive over to Penny & Marchant’s for those things. And you can stop at Mr. Howbridge’s house with this note. He must be told about poor Luke’s injury.”
“Why, Ruthie?” asked little Miss Inquisitive, otherwise Dot Kenway. “Mr. Howbridge isn’t Luke Shepard’s guardian, too, is he?”
“Now, don’t be a chatterbox!” exclaimed the elder sister, who was somewhat harassed on this morning and did not care to explain to the little folk just what she had in her mind.
Ruth was not satisfied to know that Cecile had gone to attend her brother. The oldest Kenway girl longed to go herself to the resort in the mountains where Luke Shepard lay ill. But she did not wish to do this without first seeking their guardian’s permission.