The young man was wiping his weak eyes upon a voluminous silk handkerchief which had evidently seen long service since its last washing. “Dear Uncle Ebeneezer,” he breathed, running his long, bony fingers through his hair. “I cannot tell you how heavily this blow falls upon me. Dear Uncle Ebeneezer was a distinguished patron of the arts. Our country needs more men like him, men with fine appreciation, vowed to the service of the Ideal. If you will pardon me, I will now retire to my apartment and remain there a short time in seclusion.”
So saying, he ran lightly upstairs, as one who was thoroughly at home.
“Who in—” began Harlan.
“Mr. Harold Vernon Perkins, poet,” said Dick. “He’s got his rhyming dictionary and all his odes with him.”
“Without knowing,” said Dorothy, “I should have thought his name was Harold or Arthur or Paul. He looks it.”
“It wa’n’t my fault,” interjected the old lady, “that he come. I didn’t even sense that he was on the same train as me till I hired the carriage at the junction an’ he clim’ in. He said he might as well come along as we was both goin’ to the same place, an’ it would save him walkin’, an’ not cost me no more than ’t would anyway.”
While she was speaking, she had taken off her outer layer of drapery and her bonnet. “I’ll just put these things in my room, my dear,” she said to Dorothy, “an’ then I’ll come back an’ talk to you. I like your looks first-rate.”
“Who in—,” said Harlan, again, as the old lady vanished into one of the lower wings.
“Mrs. Belinda something,” answered Dick. “I don’t know who she’s married to now. She’s had bad luck with her husbands.”
Mrs. Carr, deeply troubled, was leaning against the wall in the hall, and Dick patted her hand soothingly. “Don’t you fret,” he said, cheerily; “I’m here to see you through.”