"Little hard on the sister unless she is a raving, tearing beauty," said the intuitive Miss Martin with a laugh. "Perhaps they are sending Maria Angelina away to keep her in abeyance!"
"Perhaps," Mrs. Blair assented. "At any rate, with this preliminary experience, I fancy that little Ri-Ri will make quite a sensation over there."
It was as if she said plainly to the curious young aunt that this pilgrimage was only a prelude in Maria Angelina's career, and she certainly did not take its possibilities for any serious finalities.
But the youthful aunt was not intimidated.
"She'll make a sensation over here if she carries off the Byrd millions," she threw out smartly.
Mrs. Blair smiled with an effect of remote amusement. Inwardly she knew sharp annoyance. She wished she could smack that loitering child. . . . Very certainly she would betray no degrading interest in her fortunes. The Martins were not to think that she was intent on placing any one!
"Johnny Byrd's a child," said she indifferently.
"He's been of age two years," said the youthful aunt, "and he's out of college now and very much a catch—all his vacations used to be hairbreadth escapes. Of course he courts danger," she threw in with a little laugh and a sidelong look.
But Mrs. Blair was not laughing. She was blaming herself for the negligence which had made this situation possible, although—extenuation made haste to add within her—no one could humanly be expected to be going up and down a trail all afternoon to gather in the stragglers. And she had told Ruth to wait.
"She's probably just tired out," said the stout widower with strong accents of sympathy. "Climb too much for her, and very sensibly they've turned back."