“‘Your cousin seems to have no regard for a regular family life,’ said Aunt accusingly, and stalked out, evidently to drag the culprit to his dinner. I knew by the way she shoved the relationship off on Caddie that she didn’t approve of her nephew, and so I thought he might prove a possible person, after all.
“The minute Aunt had closed the door after her Caddie rushed over to me and began to whisper. She is a sweet little thing, but suppressed beyond belief.
“‘Oh, Cousin Cora,’ she said, ‘I have been dying to tell some one and you will be just the one to understand. It is the most exciting thing! Poor Cousin Robert isn’t a bit like us and he has a dreadful time with Mamma. He hasn’t been brought up in our way, but lives in New York in such a worldly family, and he doesn’t think anything of dancing and the theater, and he even plays cards. He seems very nice, though, and as long as that is the way he was taught I don’t know that he is to blame. But Mamma preaches at him all the time and he escapes whenever he can politely, because he is always considerate, even when Mamma is the worst. He has been lovely to me and I told him all about Clifford and he is going to help us. Well, he told me his troubles, too. A lot of his college friends came through here the other day and he couldn’t invite them to the house, because he knew Mamma wouldn’t approve of them, so he gave a little lunch down town somewhere and invited them to go to some play. He ’phoned for the tickets early in the morning and they were to come here, but they didn’t come, so he said he would get them at the theater. Well, Cora, he got home just in time for dinner and was so excited, and afterwards he took me into the library and told me all about it. There was some mistake about the tickets for they had been used already and the people were in the box—,’ Mabel, it would sound awfully silly for me to tell you all she said he said.”
“Go on,” said Mabel, sternly; “I must hear all.”
“Well, Caddie said he said it was the mistake of his life for it showed him the sweetest girl in the world. And then she told me a lot of stuff like that and wound up by asking me if I’d help her find the girl for him, because he had vowed he would spend the rest of his life looking, if necessary, and if she helped him he would see that Clifford had the new chapel. She was explaining it all to me when in came her Cousin Robert. He stopped short, and I was the color of that cushion. Caddie didn’t notice, but introduced us and told Mr. Page that she was sure I could help him in his search, as the girl was probably in my set. He looked hard at me and said he thought I might be able to help him—and, Mabel, I was awfully glad I had on that green. And Caddie said, ‘Tell Cousin Cora what the girl was like, Robert,’—and Mabel, that man had the brazen effrontery to do it. He looked me straight in the eye and told me what he thought of my hair and eyes and nose and even my clothes. And Aunt Myra came in and was displeased. Caddie had told her something of the matinee experience, and Aunt said severely, ‘Are you still discussing that impudent creature at the theater? I should think it would have been enough to have seen her at such a place without her being there on stolen tickets!’ So we dropped the matinee girl, to my infinite relief. When I rose to go home Mr. Page insisted upon accompanying me and told Aunt Myra he hoped to interest me in the plans for the chapel. And on the way home, Mabel, he didn’t allude to the matinee and I hated to drag it in. He kept talking about that chapel and said he wanted me to help him with the architect’s plans, as he wished my opinion on it because I might have to go there some time. He expected to. I suppose he was just talking to kill time. He said he was nearly dead from an excess of virtue that came from staying with Aunt Myra a week, and wouldn’t I please, as one heathen to another, ask him to tea? So he is coming this afternoon, Mabel. What do you think of it all, anyway?”
“I think it is beautiful and just what I always expected, Cora, and I shall order my hat of Mme. Durant.”
“O, you horrid thing!” and Cora buried her rosy face in the counterpane.
