“I know, I know. Well, it will seem like nonsense by and by, after you’ve thought it over.... There, there! Be a good girl. I’ll send Nabby up with some hot tea or something. Tea is good for nerves, so folks say. Now I’m off for the lawyers. See you later.”
She called to him. He turned.
“Eh? Yes?” he queried.
She was sitting quietly in the chair, her hands in her lap, and the sunlight glistening upon her wet cheeks. She was looking at him steadily—and, it seemed to him, longingly. Yet all she said was:
“Good-by, Uncle Foster.”
“Eh? Oh, yes! Well, good-by.”
CHAPTER XX
AT four that afternoon Reliance Clark was alone in the millinery shop at the rear of the post office building, sewing this time not upon the material for a bonnet or hat, but a much-needed dress for herself, which she was making over from an old one. Business at the Clark-Makepeace shop was distressingly dull. The summer season was at an end. The cottages, most of them, were closed. Even the Wheelers, usually among the very last to leave, had departed for New Haven. Margery, so people said, was responsible for the curtailing of their stay. “The poor child,” so her mother explained to Mrs. Colton, “is tired out. She worked so hard to make the ‘Pinafore’ performance a success. If it had not been for her persistence and patience—yes, and talent, if I do say so, my dear—I don’t know how we should have come through. And then this distressing accident—if it was an accident—to Mr. Covell. It was the last straw. Such a shock to her nerves. She and poor Seymour were great friends. Of course Margery says little about it, even to me, but she has not been herself since it happened. Yes, we are closing the cottage. Where we shall spend the winter I am not yet just sure. I rather fancy California, but Margery seems more inclined toward the Riviera. Of course what Mr. Wheeler may decide is uncertain, but it will, without doubt, be one or the other.”
Skeptics, remembering similar declarations of former years, smiled behind the lady’s back. Captain Ben Snow said to his wife:
“Um-hum. Yes. Well, California’s a good place and so, I shouldn’t wonder, is this River-what-d’ye-call-it, but they are a long way off—and expensive. Adeline Wheeler may talk California and Margery somewhere else, but when papa begins to say things he’ll say New Haven, Connecticut, same as he always has before. As my grandfather used to tell, ‘Talk is cheap, but it takes money to buy Medford rum.’ You can address your Wheeler mail to New Haven, Mary, and I guess it won’t fetch up in the dead letter office.”