CHAPTER VIII.
ALEXIA COLLECTS THE NEWS.
JOEL ran off for a little visit to Grandma Bascom, at which time he unloaded himself of various packages, to find places for them on her cupboard shelves alongside the cracked sugar-bowl that had been supposed to contain Mirandy’s “wedding-cake receet.” Then he shut up his disappointment to himself as best he might, and took the last train for New York alone.
“It can’t be helped, Joe,” old Mr. King had said; “Phronsie has her hands full with that girl. So you must wait for us.”
“Bother that girl!” Joel looked. Then he thought better of it. “All right; come when you can,” he had replied, as his brow cleared. On the way to the station he ran across Alexia, who had just arrived, as usual in a terrible hurry to see Polly.
“Goodness me, Joel, you here!” she exclaimed with no show of ceremony. “Don’t I wish I had a parish, and could run about the country as you do; and here I am tied to a husband and a baby.”
“Poor husband and baby!” said Joel with a grin, who liked Alexia immensely, but always kept her on short commons of flattery.
“The most dreadful thing, Joel, you can imagine,” gasped Alexia. “Oh, dear me! I’ve hurried so—to tell Polly—there’s a girl who wormed herself into her reception, and”—
“Whose reception—the girl’s, or Polly’s?” asked Joel.
“You know—Polly’s of course. She pretended to be”—
“Who—Polly, or the girl?”