“Yes, it is that girl fast enough; there can be no mistake about it; and what a sensation she is making! She seems to checkmate us at every move.”
“Where can they have been hiding all this time?” Josephine asked.
“How do you suppose I know?” retorted her mother, sharply. “I am more interested to know where all the money comes from to enable them to cut such a swell. Why, the dress she has on must have cost a cool three hundred, to say nothing about her other expensive fixings; and then you heard what Pendleton said about her carriage and ponies.”
“Well, he said she was the author of ‘Chatsworth’s Pride,’ and if that is so, it must have brought her a good deal.”
“Pooh! you don’t suppose one book is going to enable her to live and dress like a young empress, do you?” returned Mrs. Richards, scornfully. “No; Uncle Jacob has recovered his fortune, or else——”
“Or else what?”
“He has played it upon us.”
“Played what upon us?”
“Why, poverty, you goose!”
“Mamma! that would be too dreadful. I never thought of such a thing,” Josephine said, feeling almost faint.