“I suppose it’s a cat, Florimel? You haven’t said, you know.”
“Silver-gray ground colour; broad black stripes!” cried Florimel. “It will be a beauty. Win pretended coming up he heard the wind rattle its bones through the basket, and that he thought some one was stoning the car, but you’ll see what a dream it will be! Say you’re glad we saved it, Mary!”
“I don’t have to say that, Mel; you know anybody would be, especially our sort. Take it in the house—or shall I?—and feed it and butter its paws—especially feed it. It ought to have a name,” said Mary.
“It has—Lucky,” announced Florimel, rushing past Mary to take her sufferer to Anne, to see whom she could not wait another instant.
Mrs. Garden was dressed and almost ready to go down when Mary called her.
“I heard the horn, and knew they had come, and jumped right up!” she cried. “Do, pray, fasten my gown here at the shoulder, Mary. Am I properly put together? I’ll never learn to dress myself, and one must be gowned halfway right to be seen by one’s new manservant. Does he look all one could ask, Mary?”
“He looks queer. I don’t mean precisely that; he’s really nice, speaks like an educated man, but his face doesn’t quite belong to him,” said Mary, groping for her own meaning.
“Dear me, how extraordinary!” laughed her mother. “I sincerely hope he has not been dismissed from his last place for stealing a face! I’m ready, Mary.”
Mrs. Garden, who never looked prettier nor more youthful than in the simple pink and white morning gown which she was wearing that morning, did not at first see the new chauffeur; her rapture over the car excluded all other objects. Win drew her attention to the man after she had rhapsodized over the car.
“This is Willoughby, the new man, Lynette. Willoughby, this is Mrs. Garden, who is actually your employer.”