“They are either engaged or dead,” laughed Edwin. “Such silence emanating from the library must bode extreme calamity or extreme bliss. If it continues much longer I think it is my duty as a householder to break in the door and offer congratulations or call the coroner, as the case demands.”
“It is getting late. Maybe I had better go in and ask Andy to stay to dinner.”
Molly, who had a deep-rooted objection to noise and usually talked in a low tone, now spoke in a loud voice as she bumped her way along the hall, pushing chairs and rattling the hat rack and calling out shrilly to the amused husband following her. Strange to say, she could not remember on which side of the door the knob was, although she had lived several years in that house. She fumblingly hunted it and finally opened the door with a great rattle.
Nance was seated sedately knitting and Andy was holding his coat close to the dying flames. The room was almost dark.
“Kizzie should have lighted the lamp and attended to the fire,” Molly said briskly. Oh, Molly, how could you be so untruthful, blaming things on poor Kizzie, too? (Molly’s conscience did hurt her for dragging Kizzie in and she gave the girl a long coveted blue hat that she had meant to keep for second best, feeling that it might act as a salve on her own tender, truth-loving soul. Kizzie, quite ignorant of the cause for this generosity, gratefully accepted the hat and asked no questions.)
“Yes, it gets dark before one realizes,” said Nance demurely.
“Ahem!” from the professor.
“Oh, Andy, your coat is still wet! Mildred told me you wrapped it around her. I’ll get you Edwin’s smoking jacket and have your coat dried. You must stay to dinner with us. I can ’phone your mother not to expect you at home.”
Andy did not need much persuading, but accepted the invitation with alacrity. Molly called up Mrs. McLean to ask for the loan of her son for dinner.
“Yes!” exclaimed that wise lady at the other end of the wire. “I have been expecting a telephone call for the last half hour. You may keep him but I shall wait up to see him when he gets home. I am sur-r-e he’ll have something to tell me. From my back window I saw Nance with the perambulator full of babies on her way to the lake and I sent Andy off for a walk, first putting a flea in his ear by suggesting that the lake was getting shallower and shallower. He has always been that inquisitive that I was sur-r-e he would make for that spot to find out why. I knew that all those poor-r young folks had to do was to meet. Keep him, Molly—and God bless you!”