“Do you suppose she dresses up like that every day, Silvia?” whispered Lucy Bennett, in an awe-struck voice.
Silvia, in matters of dress never being willing to show surprise, preserved her composure. “That's nothing,” she managed to say indifferently: “it can't be real, such a lot of it, and around her neck too.”
Down into the old colonial kitchen, with its corner fireplace, wide and roomy, and bricked to the ceiling, Mr. Clemcy led the way. It was a big room, and not used for its original purpose; being filled with cabinets, and shelves on which reposed some of the most beautiful specimens of china and various relics and curiosities and mementos of travel, Miss Salisbury thought she had ever seen. And she had been about the world a good bit; having utilized many of her vacations, and once or twice taking a year off from her school work, for that purpose. And being singularly receptive to information, she was the best of listeners, in an intelligent way, as Mr. Clemcy moved about from object to object explaining his collection. He seemed perfectly absorbed in it, and, as the girls began to notice, in his listener as well.
Lucy Bennett was frightfully romantic, and jumped to conclusions at once. “Oh, do you suppose he will marry her?” she cried under her breath to Silvia, as the two kept together.
“Who? What are you talking about?” demanded Silvia, who was very matter-of-fact.
“Why, that old man—Mr. Whatever his name is,” whispered Lucy.
“Mr. Clemcy? do get names into your head, Lu,” said Silvia crossly, who wanted to look at things and not be interrupted every minute.
“I can't ever remember names, if I do hear them,” said Lucy, “so what is the use of my bothering to hear them, Sil?”
“Well, do keep still,” said Silvia, trying to twist away her arm, but Lucy clung to it.
“Well, I can't keep still either, for I'm mortally afraid he is—that old man, whatever you call him—going to marry her.”