"When your opinion is desired, Louise, it will be called for," said her father severely. "In the meantime you may reserve it."
"Well, I mean to ask Miss Worth if that man is her brother?" muttered the child sullenly.
"You will do no such thing!" returned her father. "I will not have a word said to her about it."
At that his wife smiled significantly.
"It might be as well to show that paragraph to Juliet," she said, rising from the table. "Suppose you give me the paper."
"Do so, by all means," he replied, handing it to her.
"Mildred, here is something for Miss Worth. Will you see that she gets it?"
It, too, was a newspaper, and Mildred hoped compassionately, as she carried it up stairs, that it did not contain the item of distressing news for Miss Worth that her uncle had read from the other.
Mrs. Dinsmore had preceded her by several minutes, and her voice speaking in cold, cutting tones, came to the girl's ear, from the upper hall, as she set her foot upon the first stair.