"Pig!" said Fred; "wait till I yell to Flora. Flora! Tea!" Her heart was pounding joyously, but with it was the agonizing calculation as to how long it would be before Miss Carter and her charge came clopping down the front stairs on their way to the room where Mortimore had his supper. "I don't mind Laura," Fred told herself, "but if Howard sees Morty, I'll simply die!"
"Don't you want me to light up?" Maitland was asking; and without waiting for her answer he scratched a match on the sole of his boot, and fumbled about the big, gilt chandelier to turn on the gas.
"I didn't know you played, nowadays," Laura said, looking at the open piano. "Gracious, Freddy, you do everything!"
"Oh, I'm only teaching poor Flora. She has musical aspirations. Howard, cheer up that fire!"
Tea came, and Laura said kind things to Flora about the music lessons; and then they all three began to chatter, and to scream at each other's jokes, Frederica all the while tense with apprehension.... ("Miss Carter won't have the sense to hold on to him; he'll walk right in!")
But, up-stairs, her mother, leaning over the balusters to discover who had called, had the same thought, and was quick to protect her.
"It's your Lolly," Mrs. Payton said, coming back to her sister-in-law; "and I think I hear Mr. Maitland's voice. I must tell Miss Carter to go down the back stairs with Morty." Having given the order, through the closed door between the two rooms, she sat down and listened with real happiness to the babel of young voices in the parlor. "I do like to have Freddy enjoy herself, as a girl in her position should," she told Mrs. Childs; "just hear them laugh."
The laughter was caused by Howard's displeasure at Fred's story of some rudeness to which she had been subjected in canvassing for Smith—"The Woman's Candidate."
"If I'd been there, I'd have punched the cop's head!" he said, angrily.
Fred shrieked at his absurdity. "If he'd said it to you, you'd only think it was funny; and what's fun for the gander, is fun for—"