“I want you to buy them all of Hamilton and Company hereafter.”
“THAT old-fogy place! Why?”
“Because the partners, Captain Gould and the other old chap, are having a hard struggle to keep going and I want to help them.”
Mrs. Keith tossed her head. “Humph!” she sniffed. “I know why you are so interested. It is because of that upstart girl you think is so wonderful, the one who has been boarding with Clara Wyeth.”
“You're right, that's just it. She has given up her studies and her opportunities there in Boston and has come down here to help her uncles. Clara writes me that she was popular there in the school, that the best people were her friends, and you know of her summer in Europe with Letitia Pease. Letitia isn't easy to please and she is enthusiastic about Mary Lathrop. No ordinary girl could give up all that sort of thing and come back to the village where everyone knows her and go to keeping store again, and do it so cheerfully and sensibly and without a word of complaint. She deserves all the help and support we and our friends can give her. I mean to see that she has it.”
Mrs. Keith looked disgusted. “You're perfectly infatuated with that girl, John Keith,” she said. “It is ridiculous. If I were like some women I should be jealous.”
“If I were like some men you might be. Now, Gertrude, you'll buy in future from Hamilton and Company, won't you?”
“I suppose so. When your chin sets that way I know you're going to be stubborn and I may as well give in first as last. I'll patronize your precious Mary-'Gusta, but I WON'T associate with her. You needn't ask that.”
“Don't you think we might wait until she asks it first?”
“Tut! tut! Really, John, you disgust me. I wonder you don't order Sam to marry her.”