“Fine! Everything was delicious. But I don’t want you to wear yourself out cooking. If Katy can’t cook, we must get some one who can. If she can’t cook and you won’t let her nurse, why what is the use of her?”
Molly, worn out with the sleepless night and the record breaking getting of a meal out of nothing, felt as though she would disgrace herself in a minute and burst into tears. She could not discuss the matter with Edwin for fear of breaking down. Edwin kissed her good-by and tactfully withdrew.
“You goose, Molly Brown!” she scolded herself. “And what on earth are you so full of tears over? I know Edwin thinks I ought to have a nurse and I just can’t trust Mildred to any one. I am going to try so hard to have everything so nice that he won’t think about it any more.”
A grand telephoning for provisions ensued, and a dinner was planned for six-thirty that would have taxed the culinary powers of a real chef and before which Katy bowed her head in defeat. It meant that by four Molly must be back in the kitchen to start things.
CHAPTER XVI.
IRISHMAN’S CURTAINS.
Callers came in through the afternoon to welcome back to Wellington the popular wife of the popular professor and to glimpse the new baby. Kind Mrs. McLean, the wife of the doctor, a little older than when last we saw her but showing it only in her whitening hair and not at all in her upright carriage and British complexion, stopped in “just for a moment” to be picked up later by the doctor on his way to a country patient. Miss Walker herself, the busy president of Wellington, ran in from the meeting of the faculty to greet her one time pupil and to give one kiss to the college baby. Several of the seniors, who were freshmen when Molly was still at college as post graduate and who had the delight of calling her Molly while most of the others had to say Mrs. Green, came in fresh from a game of basketball, glowing with health and enthusiasm.
While these friends were all gathered about Molly and the baby, Alice Fern, Edwin Green’s cousin, driving in to Wellington in a very stylish new electric car, stopped to make a fashionable call on her law kin. She had never forgiven Molly for stealing (as she expressed it) Edwin’s affections. She was still Miss Fern, and although she was possessed of beauty and intelligence, it was likely that she would remain Miss Fern. Molly was never very much at her ease with Alice. She was particularly sensitive to any feeling of dislike entertained toward her, and Edwin’s cousin always made her feel that she disapproved of her in some way.
The living room in the broad old red brick house on the campus, occupied by the professor of English, was a pleasant room, breathing of the tastes and pursuits of the owners. Low bookshelves were in every nook and cranny, filled with books, the shelves actually sagging with them. Botticelli’s Primavera, a present from Mary Stewart, adorned one wall; Mathew Jouette’s portrait of Molly’s great grandmother, a wedding present from Aunt Clay, another. This was the portrait that looked so much like Molly and also like the Marquise d’Ochtè, between whom and Aunt Sarah Clay there was no love lost; indeed, it was this likeness that had induced Aunt Clay to part with such a valuable work of art. The other pictures were some dashing, clever sketches by Judy Kean, and Pierce Kinsella’s very lovely portrait of Mrs. Brown, that had won honorable mention at the Salon and then had been sent by the young artist to adorn Molly’s home. On the whole, it was a very satisfactory and tastefully furnished room and Molly and Edwin always declared they could talk better and think better in that room than in any they had ever seen.