“Miss Harned seems mighty stand-offish these days.”
“Millicent is a little difficult,” admitted Millicent’s cousin.
“What do you suppose it is? She seemed all smooth enough in New York last winter, and even in the spring after—But now—” He paused again without finishing his sentence. “And I had counted on your influence to make her more approachable.”
“Oh, Millicent is having a struggle with her better nature, that is all,” laughed Mrs. Dinsmore. “It’s hard living with her during the process, but she’s adorable once her noble impulses have been vanquished and she’s comfortably like the rest of the world again.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” said the downright Mr. Brockton.
“No?” Mrs. Dinsmore was sure that the impertinence of her monosyllable would be lost upon her elderly protege. “I’ll make it clear to you, if I can. Millicent, you know, has nothing—”
“With that figure and that face?” interrupted Brockton, with gallant enthusiasm.
“I was speaking in your terms, Mr. Brockton,” said the lady, with suave hauteur. “Of course all of us count my cousin’s charm and accomplishments, though we do not inventory them as possessions far above rubies. But in the valuation of the ’change she has nothing. Oh, she may manage to extract five or six hundred a year from some investments of my uncle, and she has the old Harned place in New Hampshire. That might bring in as much as seven hundred dollars if the abandoned farm-fever were still on—”
“By ginger!” boasted Brockton, whose expletives lacked ton, “it’s more than I had when I started.”
“So I remember your saying before. But I fear that my cousin is not a financial genius. What I meant by her struggles with her better nature is that she sometimes tries to thwart us when we want to make things easy for her. Her better nature had a fearful tussle with her common sense about five years ago, when Aunt Jessie asked her to go abroad; and it nearly overcame her frivolity and her vanity last winter when I met her at the dock and insisted upon having her spend the winter with me, and our second cousin, Alicia Broome, offered to be responsible for her wardrobe. But, thanks be,” she added, laughing, “the world, the flesh, and the devil won. So cheer up, Mr. Brockton. It may happen again.”