“I thought, before all this, that the girl was a bold thing,” she announced in virtuous condemnation. “It’s all very well for you to try and defend her, Bertha, but neither you nor Ada would have gone on in that way.—Oh, yes, Mrs. Willetts, my dear, he kissed her on the stairs—just as they all say. But that was the least part of it. They say his manner to her—And he was—yes, exactly. Oh, a man doesn’t take liberties, in such a way, unless a girl has allowed a good deal. It’s evident that they’ve—been—pret-ty—intimate. I’m sorry for the Alexanders, they’ll have a handful in her. Bertha, will you knock on the window? The man with the eggs is passing by, and we want three. Bertha! you are not paying any attention to me. She is not herself at all to-day, Mrs. Willetts, she looks so yellow. Yes, you do, Bertha. Don’t you think she’s very yellow, Mrs. Willetts?”
“Perhaps it is the light,” suggested Mrs. Willetts evasively.
“No, it’s not the light; it’s the late hours,” said Mrs. Snow. “I did not want her to go to the ball, late hours knock her up for days. William shows the effect of it, too—his right hand is all swelled up. He says he doesn’t know how it got so, but I think it’s from dancing too much.”
“Mother!” expostulated Miss Bertha.
“Well, my dear, I don’t see why you speak to me like that. I’m not in my second childhood yet! I don’t know why he couldn’t get a swelled hand from dancing; some of these young girls are so athletic, they grip your fingers like a vise—I know I find it very unpleasant. Don’t you remember—no, of course you don’t, but I do—how poor General Grant’s hand was puffed out to twice its size from people shaking it? The picture of it was in all the papers at the time.”
“I don’t think William danced much,” said Ada.
Mrs. Snow pursed her pale lips and shook her small, neat head.
“All I know is that he was quite worn out; he slept so heavily that he never heard me at all when I rattled at his door-knob and called to him at three o’clock this morning that I thought I heard some one on the porch below his window. It’s very odd—I’ve heard it before. I don’t think it’s cats, and I’m so afraid of tramps.”
The statuesque Ada looked up with a swiftly startled expression.
“There are always tramps around,” said Mrs. Willetts.