Martine rose from her little desk, where she had been writing a letter to her father, and as she took a step or two toward the door, Angelina spoke.
"That depends on how you look on it; it's only that the cook's gone."
"Gracious! you don't mean it. But perhaps she has only gone for a walk—"
"Oh, no, Miss Martine. I fear that she's gone for good and all. I've been down to her room, and not a vestige of her possessions remains." Angelina, even in a crisis, had to use long words. "In fact I may say that I heard her trunk being carried away about two o'clock. There it went, thumpity, thump down the stairs—those expressmen are so careless, and I was quite unaware whose trunk it was, or I might have reported it to your mother. But when the luncheon dishes were washed, the cook followed the trunk; at least she is nowhere in sight now, and not a thing done about this evening's dinner. It's the dinner, and not the cook that disturbs me," explained Angelina.
"The dinner! I should say so," responded Martine. "We must get word to Mrs. Tilworth at once. She's the fussiest old—I mean she's a very particular person, and mother wishes everything to be just so when she dines here."
"Of course, Miss Martine. Every guest of Mrs. Stratford's should receive the greatest consideration." Angelina's manner was respectful in the extreme.
"Dear me!" Martine's perplexity showed itself in her wrinkled forehead. "I certainly don't know what's to be done. Mamma and Mrs. Tilworth were to come home together from a meeting in Brookline. Mrs. Tilworth is always taking people to meetings of some kind. Poor mamma didn't want to go, but she couldn't get out of it. There's no way of getting word to them until nearly dinner time. Mrs. Tilworth would think it awfully rude to uninvite her. The only thing is to let her come, and then we can all go out to a hotel or something, and she'll call that very shiftless."
Martine was really excited. She knew Mrs. Tilworth's opinion of people who lived in apartments, and she had had a thrill of pleasant anticipation at the idea of Mrs. Tilworth's finding everything as homelike in their apartment as within the four walls of a detached house.
To have to go outside to a hotel would indeed be ignominious—from Martine's present point of view.
"Do you think Mrs. Stratford is strong enough to go to a hotel to dinner, after being out all the afternoon? I certainly shouldn't advise it."