“Miss Douglas has had a fall, mother, and is faint; please let her have your vinaigrette,” he explained, as he carefully seated her upon a sofa.
“Thanks, but I have one,” Brownie said, and straightway produced one from her little traveling-bag, which caused Miss Isabel’s pale eyes to expand with wonder.
It was a costly little trifle of solid gold, and its stopple was curiously formed and set with pearls.
She prized it, and loved to use it, because it has been one of the things which had been used last by Miss Mehetabel.
“Do look, mamma! Wherever did she get it?” whispered Isabel.
“I’m sure I don’t know, child; evidently, she belonged to a different sphere in life before she came to us. I only wish your grandfather had been at the poles that night she went to the library to beguile him with her pretty face,” returned the maternal Coolidge, impatiently.
“Oh, you begin to think she is pretty, do you?” sneered her dutiful daughter.
“Wilbur evidently thinks so, if I do not,” was the moody reply.
Brownie’s quick ears had caught every word, and she very coldly refused the glass of ice water which the young man in question at that moment brought her.
She then settled herself upon the couch and closed her eyes, thus intimating her desire to be left alone.