"I am very sorry, Miss Varian, but I hope it won't be as bad as you anticipate. There are not many women as wicked as Alphonsine, and I don't think she will try it again."
"Try it again! Why, she will try something worse. She will never rest. I shan't sleep easy in my bed. I do not think we are safe from her attempts, any one of us."
Thereupon Goneril laughed, a most disrespectful laugh, though a suppressed one, and her mistress, in a temper, ordered her out of the parlor. She obeyed the order in the letter, but not in the spirit, pausing to talk to Jay about the kittens, and then inviting him to the piazza, where, the windows being open, she could hear the conversation within as well as before. This episode broke the thread of Miss Varian's catechism, and she forgot Alphonsine in her wrath against Goneril. Meanwhile, a carriage drove up with visitors; Mr. Andrews hurried to depart, Missy disappeared into the adjoining room, and Miss Varian, being left to entertain them, soon forgot her maid's offenses. Visitors were a balm for most wounds, with her.
CHAPTER XVIII.
AT THE BEACH GATE.
A fortnight after this, Mr. Andrews was smoking his post-prandial cigar with the Varians at the beach gate, and watching the sunset. It had been a fortnight of not very varied experiences. Mr. Andrews had chiefly learned from it how difficult it was to see much of his neighbors without making it a formal business. It was in vain to ask Miss Rothermel to drive; equally unfruitful to ask her to sail. So many evenings of the week proved rainy, or foggy, or cold, that this was only the third cigar he had smoked on their lawn since the evening when they watched the boat which was lying in wait for poor Jay. It was impossible to deny that the evenings were lonely, and that meerschaum companions were scarce, and that Mr. Andrews, since his stirring adventure, had rather hankered for some one to speak to. This evening he said, rather awkwardly,
"Mrs. Varian, I am expecting some visitors this week. I am going to ask you to call on them, and—and show them some attention."
Missy, who was making some pictures on a slate for Jay on the ground at her feet, suddenly looked up with a face of amazement.