"I'm sorry to hear that. Then you did not celebrate Lottie's birthday in the grove, as you had intended?"
"Oh, yes! They all went and enjoyed themselves very much, I believe. I stayed at home, my head was too bad."
Armstrong making no reply, the subject drops.
After dinner, Pauline, who has left her tennis-racket lying on the grass, runs out to fetch it, and is immediately followed by her younger sister, who begins eagerly—
"Oh, Polly, did you hear her about the tea in the grove and that stupid old headache, making such a ridiculous fuss? You were right about her, after all, you see. I must say I never could have believed Addie would become such a tell-tale! Perhaps, now that we're gone, she'll tell a lot more—tell that we treated her unkindly, made her head worse with the noise. Perhaps Mr. Armstrong will never let the dear boys come here again. Oh, Polly, let us go back and stop her telling more!"
"No, it is not necessary; she's not telling any more. I don't fancy," continues Miss Pauline, in a tone more of musing analysis than for the information of her eager companion, "that Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong have quite as much to say to each other when they're alone as when we're keeping them company."
"No, Polly? Why? What makes you think that?"
"Several things make me think it," Pauline replies, shaking her head. "Addie has not seen fit to confide any of her secrets to me, though in the old days we never had a thought apart; but, all the same, she can't take me in—can't bandage my eyes as easily as that. No, no, my young lady, no!"
"I should think not indeed," says Lottie, with wily emphasis. "If she tries to deceive you, Poll, she'll find she's mistaken—pretty soon, I fancy. And so you think, Poll, you think—"
"I think," resumes Pauline, swallowing the bait, "that all is not quite on the square between Addie and her vitriol husband."