"Oh, my! Don't we?" giggled his daughter.
"And now, if Pietro the bear has left us anything in the house to eat, let us have supper, Janice. I expect that hereafter Miss Peckham's opinion of us will be too acrimonious for speech."
"Oh, she never did like me much," sighed Janice. "And now Arlo Junior has made it worse again. Just think! The bear on top of the cats—"
"Scarcely that, my dear," laughed her father. "But if she really believes you introduced that bear for the praise of scaring her, her poor Sam's getting hurt over here will be a small incident compared with this ursine hold-up. The neighbors are going to hear about this, I feel sure."
Nor was he mistaken on that point. Before forty-eight
hours had elapsed it was noised around the neighborhood that "that very ladylike person, Mrs. Watkins" had been obliged to leave the Days and had returned to Marietteville, because of the treatment accorded her in "that house, which she had entered only as a favor."
It was told that Janice had invited a tramp with a dancing bear into the house and that "no lady who deemed herself such" could endure rudeness of that character. Somehow, the neighborhood censor did not figure in the story of the dancing bear; perhaps she feared to be ridiculed.
But Janice told Mrs. Carringford all about it. That good woman had serious troubles of her own; but she was not so selfish that she could not sympathize with Janice.
"I do wish I could do something to help you and your father, my dear," said the woman. "When people have as nice a house as you have Amy has told me all about it —it does seem too bad that it can't be kept as a home should be kept."
"Like yours, Mrs. Carringford," said Janice.