“And so Lizzie said, 'Very well, but if I do take that medicine my death will be wholly on your responsibility!'” with a sense of climax.
“But I really would like to, Mrs. Severance, if you can ever spare the time.”
Ted and Louise's friend seemed to be getting along very well. That was nice—so often Oliver's friends and Louise's didn't. It seemed odd that Mrs. Severance should be working on “Mode”—surely a girl of her obvious looks and intelligence left with no children to support—some nice man—A lady, too, by her voice, though there was a trifle of something—
She only hoped Mrs. Severance didn't think them all too crowded and noisy. It was a little hard on the three children to have such an—intimate—home when they brought friends.
“I think we'd better have coffee out on the porch, don't you?” That meant argument with Sheba later but an hour's cool and talk without having to shout across the dear little children was worth the argument.
Everybody got up, Ted being rather gallant to Mrs. Severance. Oliver looked worried today, worried and tired. She hoped it wasn't about Nancy and the engagement. What a miserable thing money was to make so much difference.
“Mrs. Severance—”
“Mr. Billett—”
Louise's friend was certainly attractive. That wonderful red-gold hair—“setter color” her sister had always called it of her own. She must write her sister. Mrs. Severance—an odd name. She rather wished, though, that her face wouldn't turn faintly hard like that sometimes.
“No, Dickie. No chocolate unless your mother says you can have it. No, Rosalind, if mother says not, you certainly cannot go over and play at the Rogers',—they have a paralytic grandmother who is very nervous.”