"Why, Mother Clancy," ejaculated Betty Tabor, sitting on a stool by the window of the Clancy apartment, "one would think to hear you talk that we had lost the pennant already."
"Now, there's Willie," continued Mrs. Clancy, ignoring the protest, "goin' round with a grouch on all the time like he could bite nails in two. There's that nice McCarthy boy frettin' his heart out because you haven't treated him nicely, and Swanson worryin' about something. And there's Williams sneakin' round like he'd been caught robbin' a hen roost."
"Mother Clancy," protested the girl, reddening, "you have no right to say I haven't been treating Mr. McCarthy well. A girl cannot throw herself at a man—especially an engaged man."
"How do you know he's engaged?" demanded Mrs. Clancy. "Lands sakes, I haven't heard him announcing his engagement, and he looks at you across the dining room as sad as a calf chewing a dish rag."
"I overheard—I saw the girl," admitted Betty Tabor, blushing as she bowed her pretty head over her work. "She was telling him she wouldn't marry him if he continued to play ball—besides, Mr. Williams met her uncle, and he said they were engaged."
"Is she pretty?" demanded Mrs. Clancy.
"Beautiful," admitted Miss Tabor. "She's tall and fair and graceful, and she had on such a wonderful gown all trimmed"——
"It looks to me," interrupted Mrs. Clancy, cutting off the description of the dressmaking details heartlessly, "as if someone was just jealous."
"Why, Mother Clancy," said the girl, shocked and red, "you must think me perfectly frightful to believe I'd act that way."
"Oh, girls your age are all fools," said Mrs. Clancy complacently. "I reckon I was myself at your age. Why, if Willie even spoke to another girl I'd go out and hunt up two beaux just to show him I didn't care. You went out with Williams when we came in last night, didn't you?"