“Yes, tell me all about the girl. I may as well hear it now as any time. O, my poor boy, that he should have thrown himself away like that.”
Georgie had her cue now, and knew just how to proceed.
“The girl was by Charlie’s side trying to extricate him, and that was how we found out who she was and that he was married that morning. She was slightly injured, a bruise on her head and shoulder, and arm, that was all, and she seemed very much composed and slept very soundly a good part of the day following. I should not think her one to be easily excited. I did what I could for her, and spoke of her coming home with me as a matter of course.
“She said, ‘Did they send any word to me by that gentleman?’ meaning Russell. I questioned Russell on the subject and could not learn that any message had been sent directly to her, and so she declined coming, and when I asked her if she did not feel able to travel so far, she burst out crying, and said: ‘I could endure the journey well enough, though my head aches dreadfully, but they don’t want me there, and I cannot go;’ a decision she persisted in to the last. She seemed a mere child, not more than fifteen, though she said she was seventeen.”
“And did you leave her there alone?” Maude asked, her cheeks burning with excitement, for she had detected the spirit of indifference breathing in every word Georgie had said of Edna, and resented it accordingly.
Edna had a champion in Maude, and Georgie knew it, and her eyes rested very calmly on the girl as she replied:
“I telegraphed to her aunt, a Miss Jerusha Pepper, who lives near Canandaigua, and also to her friends in Chicago, a Mr. and Mrs. John Dana, and before I left Mrs. Dana came, a very plain, but perfectly respectable appearing woman.”
“Which means, I suppose, that you do not think she would steal, or pick a man’s pocket, unless sorely pressed,” Maude broke in vehemently. “For goodness’ sake, Georgie, put off that lofty way of talking as if poor Edna was outside the pale of humanity, and her friends barely respectable. I am sorry for her, and I wish she was here, and I want to know if you left her with any one who will be kind to her, and say a comforting word.”
“Maude, have you forgotten yourself, that you speak so to Georgie in Mrs. Churchill’s and my presence?” Mrs. Burton said reprovingly, while Mrs. Churchill looked bewildered, as if she hardly knew what it was all about, or for whom Maude was doing battle.
In no wise disconcerted, Georgie continued in the same cool strain: