“If there’s anything of mine up here, for heaven’s sake burn it right away. And now clean yourself up and come out with me. You must show yourself or people won’t know you’re in town. And come home to luncheon with me afterward.”
“I’d like to, Aunt Julia, but I really mustn’t. Father comes home to luncheon.”
“Oh, he does, does he? Well, he has had a good many meals alone and the shock wouldn’t kill him.”
“He’s perfectly splendid! He’s just as kind and thoughtful as can be. I didn’t know that anybody’s father could be so nice.”
Mrs. Forrest rose and swept the garret disapprovingly with her lorgnette; and there may have been an excess of disapproval that was meant for something else. Julia Forrest was a woman without sentiment, for there are such in the world. The lumber-room did not interest her, and she was anxious to get out into the sunlight. She was too indolent by nature to have much curiosity: she was not a woman who spent all her rainy days poring over lavender-scented trifles and weeping over old letters. She was born in this old house, and she had played as a girl in the wooded pasture that once lay east of it. Her father’s fields were now forty-foot lots, through which streets had been cut, and the houses that had been built up thickly all about were of a formal urban type. The Merriam homestead was to Julia Forrest merely an old, shabby and uncomfortable house, whose plumbing was doubtless highly unsanitary. She had been married there; her father and mother had died there; but the place meant nothing to her beyond the fact that it was now her niece’s home. It occurred to her that she ought to see Zelda’s room, to be sure the girl was comfortable; but Zelda did not invite her in when they reached the second floor.
“The letters were beautiful; they wrote lovely letters in those days,” Zelda persisted ironically. “I wish I could have some half as nice.”
“Do get your things, Zee; it’s fine outdoors and the outing will do you good.”
“I’m very sorry, but I can’t go this morning, ma tante. I have a lot to do. I’ll be freer after a little.”
“You’re foolish, very foolish. When shall I see you, then?”
“I’ll be along late in the afternoon sometime.”