“I told you over the telephone what happened in the library,” Mrs. Breen said. “My dear, I am so happy and so proud of Lucy! But there will be the most distressing awkwardness for a little, unless something out of the ordinary happens to help her out. Now I have never been away without you since we were married. So I have decided to give the child a chance to regain her poise and strengthen her new resolutions. Something has changed her, and I am contented to accept it without question until the time comes when she will tell me of her own accord. I will go home for a week, and you must spend all the time you can with Lucy. And when you feel like it, speak well of me.”
“That will be a hard job,” said her husband, smiling.
“I suppose so,” said Mrs. Breen. “Another thing, to keep her interest in me, if you should decide to repaper my room and want to surprise me, I would be perfectly satisfied with Lucy’s taste.”
So when Lucy came in that night, dreading the next step toward the right, she found only her father reading under the library light.
“Hello, Donna Lucia,” he said, looking up. “Did you know that we are orphans?”
“No,” said Lucy. “What has happened?”
“Mamma decided very suddenly that she had to go home to Boston to attend to some matters, and she did not have time to telephone you or call around at Mrs. Hargrave’s. But she managed to stop in at the office, and she has left me in your charge.”
Lucy heaved a sigh of relief. Thank goodness, she would have a little time to herself anyway.
A couple of days later Mr. Breen approached the subject of the new wall-paper. He merely approached it, because at the first mention Lucy fairly flung herself on it and appropriated it. The very thing, she decided. She thought that room was about as shabby as it could be. Could she select the paper? Of course she could! She knew exactly what mamma would like.