The greenness was still confined to Mimosa Beach. Other communities kept up their quarantine. The four girls next door to the Raymonds were as zany as ever, and Dora Hastings stayed on, of necessity.
And then the monotony was broken by greater calamities.
First, there was the matter of Patricia Pontiac's approaching motherhood. While this, of course, made no difference as far as the town was concerned, Dora was greatly perturbed, and, ever being one to insist on others keeping within the limits of her own narrow paths, she took the girl to task.
"Patricia," she insisted sternly, "there simply must be a man to blame for your condition! You must marry him. Think of the baby! You want him to be fatherless?"
"Fatherless? Him?" Patricia repeated, frowning in perplexity. "What you talking about? My little baby girl all mine. This man business I don't understand."
"Nonsense! You're just trying to pretend innocence."
"Oh, give it up, Dora," Helen urged wearily. "She doesn't know what you're talking about."
Dora raised skeptical eyebrows. "In her condition?"
After that, Dora went around with a great air of virtue condescending to help the wayward. It must be a burden, Helen felt, to have to feel superior because of other people's faults. Such a negative sort of superiority.