“Not without an invitation,” said ’Lena smilingly.
“True, true,” returned her cousin. “It’s downstairs, I dare say. I only stopped to look at this. I’ll go and get yours now.”
Suiting the action to the word, he descended to his mother’s room, asking for “’Lena’s card.”
“’Lena’s card! What do you mean?” said Mrs. Livingstone, looking up from the book she was reading, while Carrie for a moment suspended her needle-work.
“’Lena’s invitation; you know well enough what I mean,” returned John Jr., tumbling over the notes which lay upon the table, and failing to find the one for which he was seeking.
“You’ll have to ask Mrs. Graham for it, I presume, as it’s not here,” was Mrs. Livingstone’s quiet answer.
“Thunder!” roared John Jr., “’Lena not invited! That’s a smart caper. But there’s some mistake about it, I know. Who brought them?”
“Nero brought them,” said Carrie, “and I think it is strange that grandmother should be invited and ’Lena left out. But I suppose Mrs. Graham has her reasons. She don’t seem to fancy ’Lena much.”
“Mrs. Graham go to grass,” muttered John Jr., leaving the room and slamming the door after him with great violence.
’Twas a pity he did not look in one of the drawers of his mother’s work-box, for there, safe and sound, lay the missing note! But he did not think of that. He only knew that ’Lena was slighted, and for the next two hours he raved and fretted, sometimes declaring he would not go, and again wishing Mrs. Graham in a temperature but little suited to her round, fat proportions.