“There isn’t a rag of romance about it. Mr. Courtenay hasn’t tendered me his heart and his mills; I should not take them if he did so. Besides, I have a glimmer that Eulalie has her eye upon him.”
“Did you ever know of a breathing man Eulalie did not have her eye upon?”
“Barring tramps, not one. Still, Mr. Courtenay might distance the field. Besides, again, Mr. Griswold says he—the uncle—vowed long ago to remain forever true to the memory of his first wife.”
“Yes,” reflected Hazel, “that is so final! But you’ll let me pompadour your hair?”
“Oh, I don’t care—if you don’t pomp it too loudly.”
Two weeks later Hazel wrote a letter to Marion, containing this item:
Elvira has lost the little up-and-down worry wrinkle between her eyes—the only one she had; she looks about twenty-two. Mr. Erastus Courtenay has come to Lindale to inspect his mills, but he hasn’t seen the inside of one of them yet. He is here a great deal.
And this postscript was appended:
Tubs wouldn’t hold the roses Mr. Courtenay squanders on Elvira.
Marion incautiously read the letter to Eulalie, and a tempest was at once put to steep in a teapot.