“There is nothing the matter, I tell you. How is Mother?”
“She ain't any wuss. If 'twan't an impossibility I'd say she was better the last month than I'd seen her since she was took. Nellie Dean called on her this afternoon.”
“Humph! I should think a next week's bride would be too busy to call on any one except possibly the dressmaker.”
“Um-hm. Well, Nellie looks as if she'd been callin' on the dressmaker pretty often. Anyhow she looked worried and Olindy Cahoon's dressmakin' gabble is enough to worry anybody. She left a note for you.”
“Who? Olinda?”
“Land sakes! no! What would Olindy be doin' down here? There ain't any brides to dress in this house, or bridegrooms either unless you're cal'latin' to be one, or Lute turns Mormon. That last notion ain't such a bad one,” with a dry smile. “Another wife or two to help me take care of him would come in handy.”
“Who did leave the note for me, then?”
“Nellie, of course. She wanted me to be sure you got it. Somethin' about that wonderful weddin', I s'pose. I left it upstairs on your bureau.”
I found the note and put it in my pocket to read later on. I did not feel like reading it then. I did not feel like doing anything or seeing any one; yet least of all did I feel like being alone. For if I was alone I should think, and I did not want to think. I prowled about my room for a time and then went down and spent a short time with Mother. Her first question was concerning my day at the bank, and her second if I had seen any of the Coltons recently. “I rather hoped Miss Mabel would come to see me to-day,” she added. “I look forward to her visits so, I think she's a real friend of ours, Roscoe. I know you don't, dear, or you try to believe you do not; but she is—I am convinced of it. I wonder if she will come to-morrow.”
I could have put a stop to her wondering on that subject, but I was in no mood to do it then. I went into the dining-room. Dorinda warned me not to go far from the house because supper would be ready in a few minutes. The word “supper” reminded me of my unfortunate choice of an excuse and the sarcastic reference to our odd domestic arrangements; which reminded me, in its turn, of other sarcasms which had followed it. My “charming and cultivated society” was not necessary to her happiness . . . When she thought of how she had lowered herself . . . Other people did not necessarily regard me as seriously as I did myself . . . And so on . . . until Dorinda called me in to sit at the table, and pretend to eat while she and Lute commented on my lack of appetite and my absent-mindedness.