“Timothy,” said Doromea, mildly indignant, “with all his excellences, has an abominable habit of not arriving psychologically at all.” (Michael beamed—there was not a phrase of Doromea’s turning whose cleverness he ever lost.) “He is coming this afternoon on the four-thirty,” plumped Doromea, with no cleverness at all.
“I had better meet him with the cart when I go to Aunt Hester’s,” Anne reflected, “unless—perhaps you had planned to meet him yourself, Dorry?”
“No”—Doromea magnanimously overlooked the abbreviation of her cherished name—“no, I hadn’t. Of course you’ve never seen him, but——”
“There’s no one else to get off,” Anne answered, simply.
“Oh, I didn’t mean that. I meant you have never met him, or anything.” Doromea always floundered in her explanations to Anne—perhaps because she found it necessary to make so many.
“Well, that needn’t worry her any,” put in Michael. “Timothy will make her feel at ease right away.” And he smiled at Anne with an affection back of which lurked an impatience to be off and at work, now that incidental disturbances were disposed of.
“Then you’ll meet the four-thirty,” reminded Doromea, impressively.
“But you’re coming in to lunch?” called Anne, seeing them about to start off. “It’s almost time.”
“I don’t know if we’ll bother with lunch to-day,” returned Michael, absently. “You can ring, but don’t wait for us if we don’t come.”
“Gladys-Marie wants to go to the city,” commenced Anne, but the sharp corner of the porch cut off her audience; “and I must read to Aunt Hester and shell the peas,” she finished. “Gladys-Marie!”