“Why, mums, I’m sure I haven’t the slightest idea! How should I know?”
“Well, I just asked.... Will you put on your pink-and-white crêpe?”
“Don’t you think the brown silk would be better?”
“Why, Una, I want you to look your prettiest! You must make all the impression you can.”
“Well, perhaps I’d better,” Una said, demurely.
Despite her provincial training, Mrs. Golden had a much better instinct for dress than her sturdy daughter. So long as she was not left at home alone, her mild selfishness did not make her want to interfere with Una’s interests. She ah’d and oh’d over the torn border of Una’s crêpe dress, and mended it with quick, pussy-like movements of her fingers. She tried to arrange Una’s hair so that its pale golden texture would shine in broad, loose undulations, and she was as excited as Una when they heard Walter’s bouncing steps in the hall, his nervous tap at the door, his fumbling for a push-button.
Una dashed wildly to the bedroom for a last nose-powdering, a last glance at her hair and nails, and slowly paraded to the door to let him in, while Mrs. Golden stood primly, with folded hands, like a cabinet photograph of 1885.
So the irregular Walter came into a decidedly regular atmosphere and had to act like a pure-minded young editor.
They conversed—Lord! how they conversed! Mrs. Golden respectably desired to know Mr. Babson’s opinions on the weather, New-Yorkers, her little girl Una’s work, fashionable city ministers, the practical value of motor-cars, and the dietetic value of beans—the large, white beans, not the small, brown ones—she had grown both varieties in her garden at home (Panama, Pennsylvania, when Mr. Golden, Captain Golden he was usually called, was alive)—and had Mr. Babson ever had a garden, or seen Panama? And was Una really attending to her duties?
All the while Mrs. Golden’s canary trilled approval of the conversation.