“Why did you do it? It was wicked! It was cruel!”
“There!” she said, as she reclined composedly in his arms, “that will do, Muffets. I don’t want to be scolded.”
A delegation came along, bringing blankets and brandy, and took her from him.
| ✳ | ✳ | ✳ | ✳ | ✳ |
At five o’clock of that afternoon, Mr. Morpeth presented himself at the door of the parlor attached to the apartments of the Belton sisters. Miss Belton, senior, was just coming out of the room. She received his inquiry after her sister’s health with a white face and a quivering lip.
“I should think, Mr. Morpeth,” she began, “that you had gone far enough in playing with the feelings of a m-m-mere child, and that—oh! I have no words to express my contempt for you!”
And in a most unladylike rage Miss Pauline Belton swept down the hotel corridor.
She had left the door open behind her. Morpeth heard a voice, weak, but cheery, addressing him from the far end of the parlor.
“You’ve got her!” it said. “She’s crazy mad. She’ll make up to you to-night—see if she don’t.”