A WAIF’S PROGRESS
CHAPTER I
“Well?” she asked.
From the other end of the breakfast-table he returned—“Well?” and for several minutes this exchange of monosyllables seemed going to be the end—it was not quite the beginning—of the conversation that had sprung from a letter, and to the perusal or reperusal of that letter Mrs. Tancred had returned.
“Here is another instance of Felicity’s talent for laying her cuckoo’s egg in other people’s nests!” she said presently with a dryish smile. “There never was a woman who did more good—by proxy—than your sister.”
Mr. Tancred gave as much acquiescence as lay in silence to his wife’s indictment. If you are credited with having married a woman for her money, and can never for one whole minute forget it, you must acquiesce in many statements from which you differ far more widely than he did from the one in question.
“Why cannot she keep the girl herself?”
“Because Tom has put his foot down.”
This time both smiled; laughed out, indeed.
“That convenient foot!”