It brought a quick reply, in which Priscilla laughed at Martine for her two rescues—if one can be said to laugh in a letter.
"For an independent person it seems to me that you succeed in getting rescued from extreme danger pretty often. Balfour, in the fog last summer, had the easier time I should say, and I only hope that he and Herbert Brownville may not come to blows in trying to decide which is the greater hero.
"If I am called on to help to decide, I should have to decide against Balfour, for you could not be half as much lost on a horse as in a boat."
Although Priscilla was correct in her diagnosis of the different kinds of dangers, Balfour and Herbert gave no signs of coming to blows on the subject of their prowess. On the contrary, they showed an inclination to be very good friends. As Balfour's time was so fully occupied with his duties, Herbert acquired the habit of taking long rides on the cars. Then at the end of the route, or when waiting at turn-outs, he and Balfour had chances for the snatches of conversation in which boys find more pleasure than girls.
Carlotta was as little pleased with Herbert's intimacy with Balfour, as with his interest in Martine's Latin. It might not be fair to say that she wished to keep her brother entirely under her thumb, and yet it annoyed her that he was so much less amenable to her than formerly. She liked to feel that he was ready to come and go as she wished. She especially needed him to help entertain her visitors, of whom she usually had two or three staying in the house.
Now it happened one evening that Martine reading a Boston newspaper came upon something that excited her mightily.
"O, mamma," she exclaimed, "Only think! Mrs. Dundonald is coming here—just listen; Mrs. Dundonald, the well-known artist, passed through Boston to-day on her way to York Harbor where she is to spend a few days with friends."
"Well, my dear, what of it?" responded Mrs. Stratford.
"Oh, you know how I admire Mrs. Dundonald's work. She does exactly the kind of thing I should like to do, and they say she is perfectly charming. To think she is coming here! Oh, I do hope we shall meet her!"
Then Martine paused suddenly, remembering that for the present she and her mother were not likely to meet any distinguished stranger visiting York. From Clare she learned the next day that Mrs. Dundonald was staying with Miss Stark, an elderly lady whose house was next that of the Brownvilles'. Clare offered to take Martine to call on Miss Stark and Mrs. Dundonald, but Martine hesitated because she had heard that Miss Stark was a rigid upholder of formal etiquette.