"Of course, she may have changed so, after being married to a French nobleman for some twenty-eight years, that I will hesitate to ask anything of her; but I have an idea old Sally could not change. I remember her as being a great harum-scarum but with the best heart in the world, and absolutely honest and unaffected. My experience is that honest, unaffected people do not change in the long run."
"What did she look like, Mother?" asked Molly.
"Well, when I come to think of it, she looked a little like you. She is only my second cousin, once removed, not such very close kin; but this red hair of yours comes cropping out in every generation or so in my family and the similar coloring makes one fancy a likeness even if there is none; but Sally had your eyes and your chin. She took life much more lightly than my Molly does, saw a jest where none was intended and sometimes cracked a joke when seriousness would have been in better taste. I have not seen her for many years and she stopped corresponding with all of us; not that there was any disagreement, but letter-writing simply died a natural death, as time went on. I am greatly interested in seeing her."
Mrs. Brown also decided to let Mr. Kinsella approach the O'Briens in regard to having Elise live with her. She was very well aware of Mrs. Huntington's nature and felt that that lady would be fully capable of treating her as though Elise were necessary to the housekeeping scheme to help out the financial end; and Mrs. Brown was determined to have no one with her as a boarder, but to run the ménage on a co-operative principle, letting all of them share the expense.
Mrs. Huntington and Elise had stopped in Brussels for a visit with some friends and Mr. Kinsella and Pierce were still in Antwerp getting their fill of the pictures to be seen there. They were uncertain how long it would take them to grow tired of the interesting Belgian city and could not tell just when their friends might expect them in Paris.
When the three renegades returned from their walk in the Luxembourg Gardens, they hoped to reach their rooms without being seen by Mrs. Pace, but that lady's motto was "Eternal Vigilance," and no one went out of her house or came in unobserved. She met them as they stepped off the elevator on the fifth floor and gently but firmly admonished them for their disobedience. Molly noticed her mother's heightening color and her quivering nostrils and remembered with a smile what Aunt Mary, their old cook, always said to them when they were children: "Ole Miss is long suffrin' an' slow to anger but when her nose gits to wuckin', you chillun ought to learn that she done had 'nuf and you had better make yo'sefs scurse." Peace-loving Molly drew Mrs. Brown's arm through her own and gently pressing it, led her upstairs.
"Thank you, my dear, I was on the verge of attacking the dragon, and since we are to be here two weeks, I must not do anything to make it more difficult. But did you ever see anyone more impertinent?" asked Mrs. Brown, still sniffing the battle from afar.
"Never," sympathized Judy. "I wish you had said your say. I believe you could get ahead of the fabulous monster in open combat. She is, after all, a very flabby, fabulous monster and one prick would do for her."