II
PATCHOULY
Now it happened that while their discussion was at this point, the subject of it arrived. She did not at all come as a Quaker maiden ought, but like a breeze when the door is let suddenly open. And, indeed, in the coming, she had left the door open.
Her father solemnly closed it.
Meanwhile she had pounced upon her mother and kissed her, and now she attacked her father in the same way.
“Thank thee, daddy,” she laughed, and when he put her off, none too strongly, she ran up the stairs, still laughing, whence she called downward for her mother.
John stopped Ann as she would have gone, and, sniffing stealthily, pointed with his glasses up the stairs, saying ominously:
“Perfume!”
She sniffed and smiled.
“Patchouly!” she murmured. “John, it is my fault. I told her some things about myself the other day. They made us both very happy. I must tell some one. I think I mentioned patchouly. I thought it was extinct. What a time she must have had getting it!”
John frowned.