"Look at this!" said Lovina Nixon; catching an end of the sable cape, holding it up for her husband's scrutiny, and then tossing it from her and making a motion of dusting off her hands; "You know what that means, I s'pose, John?"
"Ay," said John Nixon, "ay-hay."
"Disgraced!" said Lovina Nixon; "Disgraced! Oh, you—you thing! Just wait till I get you home! Just you wait!"
Daisy's cheeks warmed at this. But, a moment after, her indignation changed to an impulse of roguery: she would let these two, for the present, believe the things they thought!
"I s'pose you can show us a respectable hotel," said her mother. "But remember—you don't get out of my sight again. You stay right with me in the hotel, till we leave town. Carry this valise for me."
Daisy dimpled with devilment as she obeyed this refreshingly familiar instruction; and, accentuating her figure-lines as she walked, for the especial benefit of the furtively-watching couple, she led the way to where Tim Davitt, the Wares' chauffeur, waited outside the depot with the limousine.
"What's this?" demanded Lovina Nixon, surveying the vehicle, "a livery rig?"
"Yes, mother," said Daisy, smiling aside at the chauffeur, as Davitt, touching his hat, held the door open. The mother, knocking her bonnet askew against the top of the car, blundered to the farther end of a seat. John Nixon lumbered in after her. Then Daisy, after a low-toned "Home, Timmy," hopped in and snuggled mischievously against her stepfather, who was in the centre of the seat.
"Don't ye be 'fraid," he leaned over and whispered, not unkindly, in her ear, "I'll not let yur Moh whup ye."
Turning street-corners smoothly and swiftly, the limousine soon reached the home grounds and was brought by Tim Davitt, deftest of chauffeurs, to a soft gliding halt before the long front veranda of the Ware house.