“I say, Louie,” he began, “where have you kept yourself? It’s an age since I saw you. I hope you are not mad at what I told you. I wish my tongue had been cut out before I did it; and isn’t your wheel a dandy? Don’t ride so fast. I want to see it. Are you mad?”
“No,” Louie answered curtly, stopping short. “I told father what you said, and it isn’t true, and if you ever hint it again, I’ll have you arrested, and your father, too. I know he is at the bottom of it, because he is jealous of father, and I’ll never speak to you again if you don’t contradict it every time you hear it. My father a gambler! Not much!”
She had said what she had to say, and was ready to forgive and be forgiven, and to talk of her wheel, which, she said, had cost seventy-five or a hundred dollars, she didn’t know which.
“It was not bought with gambling money, either,” she continued with a toss of her head. “Father gave a check on his bank.”
Herbert thought of some things he had heard with regard to the management of the bank, but wisely forebore any comment. He was too glad to have Louie back on any terms, and the two were soon bowling far out into the country, Louie keeping a little in advance, but near enough to Herbert to hear what he was telling her of the Lansings, who, he said, were coming the next day on the two o’clock train from New York. The party was a sure thing, for his father and mother had settled it that morning at breakfast. They decided, too, that no one in Merivale should be invited except those to whom his mother was indebted and those who called upon Mrs. Lansing and Miss Percy. “So you be sure and call with your mother,” he added.
Louie laughed, and said she shouldn’t trouble herself to call upon such old people, nor would they expect it, but she would tell her mother. Then she made a long, rapid sweep, and turned towards home, followed by Herbert, who with all his scorching could scarcely keep up with her, for she seemed to fly, and her wheel was proving worthy of its name, “The Flyer,” stamped upon it in silver letters, with the date of its gift to her.
“I don’t suppose I shall see you while your grand folks are here,” she said as she dismounted at her gate.
“Oh, but you must see Fred,” Herbert replied, and the last thing she heard from him as he went down the road was something about Fred, the best fellow in the world.
The next day, when Louie heard the New York train, she took a book, and seating herself upon the piazza, waited for the White carriage. She had seen it go by with Herbert in it, and in the course of half an hour it came back, with Herbert and a young man on the front seat, and two ladies behind them, presumably Mrs. Lansing and Blanche Percy. The former was short and fat and sat very erect, looking curiously about her through a gold-handled lorgnette.
“Dumpy and Frumpy and Proud,” was Louie’s mental verdict of her; then she scanned the lady beside her, who was tall and slender and fair, and dressed in mourning, with a look of care or fatigue, or both, on her face, which was very pale and very sweet: “Rather pretty, with an air about her,” Louie thought, and turned next to the young man, Fred Lansing, who was sitting on the side of the open carriage nearest to her.