Mrs. Chatterton gave another low, unpleasant laugh, and this time shrugged her shoulders.
"Polly dear," said Mrs. Whitney with a smile, "say good-morning to Mrs. Chatterton, and then run away. I will hear your wonderful plan by and by. I shall be glad to, child," she was guilty of whispering in the small ear.
"Good-morning, Mrs. Chatterton," said Polly slowly, the brown eyes looking steadily into the traveled and somewhat seamed countenance before her.
"Good-morning," and Polly found herself once more across the floor, and safely out in the hall, the door closed between them.
"Who is she?" she cried in an indignant spasm to Jasper, who ran up, and she lifted her eyes brimming over with something quite new to him. He stopped aghast.
"Who?" he cried. "Oh, Polly! what has happened?"
"Mrs. Chatterton. And she looked at me—oh! I can't tell you how she looked; as if I were a bug, or a hateful worm beneath her," cried Polly, quite as much aghast at herself. "It makes me feel horridly, Jasper—you can't think. Oh! that old"—He stopped, pulling himself up with quite an effort. "Has she come back—what brought her, pray tell, so soon?"
"I don't know, I am sure," said Polly, laughing at his face. "I was only in the room a moment, I think, but it seemed an age with that eyeglass, and that hateful little laugh."
"Oh! she always sticks up that thing in her eye," said Jasper coolly, "and she's everlastingly ventilating that laugh on everybody. She thinks it high-bred and elegant, but it makes people want to kill her for it." He looked and spoke annoyed. "To think you fell into her clutches!" he added.
"Well, who is she?" cried Polly, smoothing down her ruffled feathers, when she saw the effect of her news on him. "I should dearly love to know."