"Maybe there was insanity in the family," suggested Mary.
"Perhaps she had a very stern father who scorned her lover," and Annie blushed that her mind should run on stern fathers.
"I believe it was just a matter of spondulix," said the practical Dee.
"Oh, no! surely not!" exclaimed Dum. "I don't believe Miss Cox is the kind of woman to give up a man because he is poor. I believe it was because she thought she was so homely."
"Well, he must have been a pretty poor stick of a lover if he could not persuade her that she was beautiful. I'd hate to think that of Mr. Gordon. Maybe he gave her up because he was poor. School teaching is 'mighty po' pickin's,' as Mammy Susan says."
"Well, I hope they won't keep us waiting very long, because I'm simply dying to know," sighed Dum.
This conversation was held after we got back to the beach and were installing the guests in their quarters. We had decided to sleep, all five of us, on one porch, as it was so much more fun. It made the cots come rather close together but that made giggling and whispering just so much simpler.
Miss Cox had had a pleasant morning, she declared, and had the table all set for luncheon with tempting viands thereon. We had brought a supply of delicacies from Schmidt's in Richmond and I had a fine ham, cooked by Mammy Susan's own method, which I produced from my trunk as a surprise for Zebedee, so "poor, dear Blanche" did not have to officiate at this meal but could spend her time getting her sleeping porch in order and unpacking her huge basket of clothes.
We had been rather concerned about how a sleeping porch would be looked on by the cook, but she set our minds at rest with great tact.
"Yes'm, I is quite customary to air in my sleeping department. At school the satinary relegations is very strengulous and we are taught that germcrobes lurks in spots least inspected. And now I will take off my begalia of travel and soon will be repaired to be renitiated into the hysterics of domestic servitude." And we were going to have to listen to this talk for a whole month and keep straight faces or perhaps lose the services of "poor, dear Blanche"!