Again Mrs. Vanderburgh did not reply, but looked him up and down in cold silence. Old Mr. Selwyn, not appearing to notice, chattered on. At last she deliberately turned her back on him.
"Isn't he common and horrid?" whispered Fanny Vanderburgh, in the steamer chair next to Polly, thrusting her face in between her and her book. And she gave a little giggle.
"Hush!" said Polly, warningly, "he will hear you."
"Nonsense—it's impossible; he is rattling on so; and do look at
Mamma's face!"
He didn't hear, but Tom did; and he flashed a glance—dark and wrathful—over at the two girls, and started forward, abruptly pulling his Grandfather along.
"O dear me!" exclaimed Polly, in distress, dropping her book in her lap; "now he has heard."
"Oh, that dreadful boy," said Fanny, carelessly, stretching out in her steamer chair comfortably; "well, who cares? he's worse than his Grandfather."
"Yes, he has heard," repeated Polly, sorrowfully looking after the two, Tom still propelling the old gentleman along the deck at a lively rate; "now, what shall we do?"
"It isn't of the least consequence if he has heard," reiterated Fanny, "and Mamma has been frightfully bored, I know. Do tell us, Mamma," she called.
Mrs. Vanderburgh turned away from the rail, where she had paused in her constitutional when addressed by the old gentleman, and came up to the girls.