"I am sure of it. I am sure, too, that though she sometimes tries to put on heavy matronly airs before you and others, she has the same wild fund of spirits in reserve as ever, and is at heart, as I've said before, just as fond of fun and society as any of us."
"Thank Heaven for that!" he mutters to himself. "Patience! A few years—nay, a few months more, and all these shadows will have passed away. I must give her society." Then, aloud—"You think she enjoyed herself this evening, Pauline, and, if I proposed giving a few dinner parties, and perhaps a dance occasionally, she would not think it a trouble, a bore—eh?"
"I am certain there is nothing would give her greater pleasure; but at the same time, Tom," says Miss Pauline, with wily impressiveness, "if she thought, suspected even, that you were doing it solely for her sake, she would be the first to oppose it, to say she hated entertaining, thought it a bother, and so on."
"I see."
"So, Tom, you must not pay the least attention to her if she pretends to dislike gayety, for I, who have known her all her life, can assure you that there is nothing she is so fond of, or that agrees so well with her. And, as for the trouble of writing invitations and entertaining guests, why, there are always Bob and I at hand to take our share of the labor and make ourselves as useful to you and Addie as we can, Tom."
"What a good girl you are, Pauline," says Armstrong, patting her shoulder approvingly, with a smile which she does not quite understand—"quite a fireside treasure!"
CHAPTER XVII.
"And so you like her, Bob?"
"Rather, Polly; she's an A 1 specimen, and no mistake! I suspect I should soon be her slave if I saw too much of her," says Mr. Lefroy, smoothing his budding mustache.