"Oh, God forgive you, Judy," said she, "even to mention such a thing. I forbid you ever to speak of it again. I don't care what woman came in the door, I'd turn her out like a thramp. He's mine, I've been widout him ten years, and I'm going to hold him now against every schemin' woman in the world."
"Faith," said Judy, "I don't want to see another woman in the house anny more than yerself. I'm on'y warnin' yez. It 'ud jist break my heart to lose the grandher he's afther puttin' on yez."
The two women looked about them with mournful admiration. The house, perfect in its furnishings, delighted the womanly taste. In Anne's wardrobe hung such a collection of millinery, dresses, ornaments, that the mere thought of losing it saddened their hearts. And the loss of that future which Anne Dillon had seen in her own day-dreams ... she turned savagely on Judy.
"You were born wid an evil eye, Judy Haskell," cried she, "to see things no wan but you would ever think of. Never mention them again."
"Lemme tell ye thin that there's others who have somethin' to say besides meself. If they're in a wondher over Artie, they're in a greater wondher over Artie's mother, buyin' silks, an' satins, an' jools like an acthress, an' dhressin' as gay as a greenhorn jist over from Ireland."
"They're jealous, an' I'm goin' to make them more so," said Anne with a gleeful laugh, as she flung away care and turned to the mirror. For the first time since her youth she had become a scandal to her friends.
Judy kept Arthur well informed of the general feeling and the common opinion, and he took pains not only to soothe his mother's fright but also to explain the little matters which irritated her friends. Mrs. Everard did not regard the change in Anne with complacency.
"Arthur is changed for the better, but his mother for the worse," she said to Judy, certain that the old lady would retail it to her mistress. "A woman of fifty, that always dressed in dark colors, sensibly, to take all at once to red, and yellow, and blue, and to order bonnets like the Empress Eugenie's ... well, one can't call her crazy, but she's on the way."
"She has the money," sighed Mona, who had none.
"Sure she always had that kind of taste," said Judy in defence, "an' whin her eyes was blue an' her hair yalla, I dunno but high colors wint well enough. Her father always dhressed her well. Anyhow she's goin' to make up for all the years she had to dhress like an undertaker. Yistherday it was a gran' opery-cloak, as soon as Artie tould her he had taken four opery sates for the season."