“The punishment is severe, sister dear, but I submit.”
And Edward marched away to his room smiling, while his sisters pouted, yet wanted to call him back for the kiss of affection which never was forgotten when they were about to separate for the night.
The next morning Mr. W—— rose unusually early, took his coffee and a slice of toast, and left the house on his way to the bindery before his sisters were up.
He bought a paper at the nearest news-stand, and while riding down town in a street car read a long and well-written narrative of a sub-editor’s experience in a storm.
The heroism of Miss Hattie Butler, and the modesty which made her refuse to be interviewed or in any way recompensed for what she had done, was commented on in brilliant terms. She had done this incalculable service, and then completely withdrawn from notice, and no one knew whither she had gone.
“It was so like her.”
That was all Mr. W—— said. But in it he paid her the highest compliment.
He found, on his arrival at the bindery, all who had come, the foreman and a good part of the hands, in a great state of excitement.
They had all seen either the extras of the day before, or got the morning papers. And the question among them all was, was the Hattie Butler alluded to the one who worked in the bindery. None of them, not even the foreman, had known of her leaving town, for Mr. W——, on Saturday night, had not thought it necessary to speak of it, and would not have done so now, except to his foreman, but for the questions of his work-people.
But now, with a pride he had no wish to control, he told them it was their Hattie Butler—that she had been suddenly called away to the bedside of a sick relative in Boston, and that she was on the boat when she played the heroine so grandly.