"I presume so, unless at the loss of Miss Laura Blair the whole economy of creation blows up with a crash."
"And so you see," said Laura, sitting down on a chair, and flirting out her skirts all around her, "I drove up to Redmon this morning, with a great basketful of English strawberries the size of crab-apples, as a coaxer to Lady Leroy; and through their eloquence, and the promise of another, got her to let Natty come to town with me on business."
"On business;" said Captain Cavendish; "that means shopping."
"No, sir, it doesn't; it means something serious, and that you must take share in. You, too, Jeannette, and you, Alick, if we run short."
"Thank you," said Alick, "what is it?"
"Why, you know," began Miss Blair, with the air of one about entering upon a story, "there's that Mrs. Hill—you know her, Alick?"
"What! the wife of the pilot who was drowned in the storm last week?"
"That's the one," nodded Laura. "Well, she's poor—Oh, dear me! ever so poor, and her two children down in the measles, and herself half dead with rheumatism. I shouldn't have known a thing about it only for Miss Rose. I do declare Miss Rose is next door to an angel; she found her out, and did lots of things for her, and told me at last how poor she was, and asked me to send her some things. So then I made up this plan."
"What plan?" inquired Jeannette, as Laura stopped for want of breath, and Nathalie sat listening with an amused look.
"Oh, didn't I tell you? Why, we're going to have a play, and every one of us turn into actors; admission, half a dollar. Won't it be grand?"