So we started out again. The sun and air made me so drunken with pure joy of living that I didn't mind the scolding sure to follow—though it certainly has proved an annoyance ever since to have Aunt's fidgetty oversight of me redoubled, and to be shut up, as I have been, closer than ever, like a Princess in a fairy book, just as my splendid triumphs were beginning.
Worst of all, almost, Mrs. Baker told the tale of my misdeeds to John.
"Why, Helen," he said at once, "no photographer of standing goes about soliciting patronage; the man who came here wants pictures of you to sell."
"Like the great ladies' photographs in England?" I asked flippantly, though I was really a little disturbed.
"Just what I told her!" groaned Aunt Frank. "Bake must see the man; or—Mr. Burke, why can't you find out about him? Perhaps it's all right," she added weakly; "from her accounts he didn't flatter Nelly one bit; simply raved over her."
"Yes, I'll run in and converse with the art lover," John grimly agreed; but just then in came Milly with the General, and the subject was changed.
Indeed, though I don't know just how she managed it, from the moment the brilliant woman of the world entered the room, poor clumsy John was made to seem clumsier than ever, and before long, without quite knowing why, he went away. I'm pretty sure that Mrs. Van Dam dislikes to see us together.
John was wrong and yet not wrong about the photographer; his threatened interposition came to nothing, for the very next morning—only yesterday, long ago as it seems—I was enlightened as to the cheap and silly trick that had been played upon me.
"Thee, Cothin Nelly; pwetty, pwetty!" cried Joy, running towards me and holding up a huge poster picture from the Sunday Echo.
"Isn't it—why—give it to me!" I almost snatched the sheet from her baby hands.