Persis regarded her keenly and Diantha's color rose. For no apparent reason her blush became a conflagration.
"I didn't know you and Thad had much chance to talk things over nowadays."
"They won't let him come to the house. They say I'm too young." Diantha laughed mockingly. "And mother was only a little older when she married father, and she was engaged twice before that."
"I suppose you keep on seeing him just the same."
"Course I do."
Persis mused. Diantha was wrong, undoubtedly, and yet more sinned against than sinning. Cautions and expostulations were unavailing with this spirited young creature, smarting under continued injustice and seeing with her uncompromising clearness of vision the selfish jealousy which would keep her out of her birthright indefinitely. "You want to be real careful, Diantha," said Persis, realizing the futility of her words. "Thad's a nice boy and you're a nice girl, but it don't look well for young folks to be meeting on the sly."
She tried but with little success, to exercise a certain supervision over Diantha that winter. Though the children came down with measles one after another, and Joel had an attack of rheumatism which kept him a prisoner in his bed for seven weeks, it seemed to Persis that Diantha was never really out of her mind. She was surprised on the other hand to find how little Justin Ware was in her thoughts. Instead of returning to Clematis in a few weeks as he had intended, he had been called West unexpectedly. He had not written Persis to apprise her of his change of plans, and she heard of it only through Mrs. Hornblower. And the astonishing part was that she heard it with scarcely a pang. She had discontinued her practise of saying good night to the photograph in the plush frame with Justin Ware's return, but sometimes when the house was still, she took her stand before it and studied the pleasant, immature face intently, as if trying to read from its ingenuous smile a solution of some inward perplexity.
The measles and the winter ran their course together. The children ventured out and the daffodils ventured up. Joel hobbled about with a cane and took Celia in search of violets. The baby who had come very near dying, decided apparently that since recovery was in order she might as well make a thorough job of it and began to grow fat and sweet-tempered and to acquire dimples. And Persis made the pleasing discovery that in the months during which she had been a woman of property, she had not spent her income and resolved at once on rectifying this needless opulence.
"I've done considerable plodding in my time, I wouldn't mind a little skimming for a change," thought Persis. Next to a family she had long craved an automobile. The surplus of her income was sufficient for the purchase of one of the cheaper grades of cars. Persis decided on a visit to the city, with a view to making this investment.
"I'm a little seedy with being shut in so much this winter, and a trip will do me good whether I buy an automobile or not. Mary's mother will come and stay with her and help out with the children. And if Joel wants to go along, he can." But apparently the protective impulse which had moved Joel to offer his company on the occasion of her previous visit had waned during the winter. He declined the invitation without thanks.