“Oh, would you?—if their mother was one of the nicest women, and your friend? Besides, the reservation does not cover the whole valley. Banks Bowen talks of a mine he wants to look at—I don't think it will make much difference to the mine! This is simply to say that I wish Paul cared more about the trip for its own sake.”
“Well, frankly, I think he's better out of the way for the next fortnight. The girls ought to go to bed early, and keep the roses in their cheeks for the wedding. Moya's head is full of her frocks and fripperies. She is trying to run a brace of sewing women; and all those boxes are coming from the East to be 'inspected, and condemned' mostly. The child seems to make a great many mistakes, doesn't she? About every other day I see a box as big as a coffin in the hall, addressed to some dry-goods house, 'returned by ——'”
“Moya should have sent to me for her things,” said Mrs. Bogardus. “I am the one who makes her return them. She can do much better when she is in town herself. It doesn't matter, for the few weeks they will be away, what she wears. I shall take her measures home with me and set the people to work. She has never been fitted in her life.”
The colonel looked rather aghast. He had seldom heard Mrs. Bogardus speak with so much animation. He wondered if really his household was so very far behind the times.
“It's very kind of you, I'm sure, if Moya will let you. Most girls think they can manage these matters for themselves.”
“It's impossible to shop by mail,” Mrs. Bogardus said decidedly. “They always keep a certain style of things for the Western and Southern trade.”
The colonel was crushed. Mrs. Bogardus rose, and he picked up her handkerchief, breathing a little hard after the exertion. She passed out, thanking him with a smile as he opened the door. In the hall she stopped to choose a wrap from a collection of unconventional garments hanging on a rack of moose horns.
“I think I shall go out,” she said. “The air is quite soft to-night. Do you know which way the children went?” By the “children,” as the colonel had noted, Mrs. Bogardus usually meant her daughter, the budding tyrant, Christine.
“Fine woman!” he mused, alone with himself in his study. “Splendid character head. Regular Dutch beauty. But hard—eh?—a trifle hard in the grain. Eyes that tell you nothing. Mouth set like a stone. Never rambles in her talk. Never speculates or exaggerates for fun. Never runs into hyperbole—the more fool some other folks! Speaks to the point or keeps still.”