“And you’ll be a mother to her. Celestine, that’s too good, don’t you know. Ha, ha, ha!”
“Your mirth is always as ill-timed as your other attempts at ideas,” remarked his wife angrily. “I repeat, Phronsie Pepper has no mother with her to advise her.”
“But she has old Mr. King; and he’s just the very—well, if you want to tackle him, go ahead.”
“I certainly shall speak to her,” said Mrs. Bayley with dignity.
“And when the old man gets through with you, perhaps you’d like to try your hand on her brother, Joel Pepper. But I don’t believe you will, Celestine, I give you my word for it.”
He tossed that cigarette overboard, it not having been rolled to suit him, and began on another.
“To think of that girl, with her beauty and advantages, taking up with a miserable old dowdy of a woman whom nobody knows a thing about, and spending all her time on her.”
“When she might be with you,” cut in Mr. Bayley, getting into his steamer-chair again, and leaning his elbows on his knees to assist him through his arduous labor.
“When she might be with me,” repeated Celestine calmly; “think what I could be to that girl,” she added complacently, and playing with her rings.
“She isn’t awake to those immense advantages,” observed her husband; “that is, don’t appear to be.”