CHAPTER XIII.
AN ANXIOUS MIND
“How did I act?” asked the Mayor, humbly. It was eight o’clock the next morning, and he was standing before Berty as she took her breakfast alone, Grandma having gone across the street to visit her hysterical patient.
Berty thoughtfully drank some coffee.
“I’d take a cup, too, if you’d offer it to me,” he said, still more humbly, and sitting down opposite her. “Somehow or other I hadn’t much appetite this morning, and only took a bite of breakfast.”
Berty, still in silence, poured him out a cup of strong coffee, and put in it a liberal supply of cream. Then, pushing the sugar-bowl toward him, she again devoted herself to her own breakfast.
“You’re ashamed of me,” said the Mayor, lifting lumps of sugar into his cup with a downcast air. “I gabbled.”
“Yes, you gabbled,” said Berty, quietly.
“But I’m going to make an impression,” said the Mayor, slapping the table with one hand. “I’m going to make that woman look at me, and size me up, if she doesn’t do anything more.”