"Oh, Dolly!" Ann clapped her hands and leaned eagerly toward her ghastly sister. "Do you reckon he went and told it? I know; he just couldn't keep it—he is so much in love. Oh, Dolly, tell 'em about it. Here you are keeping it so close, while he is sticking it into a paper for everybody to read. I never could see any reason for you to be so awful secret, anyway. It has been all I could do to—"
"What's the child talkin' about?" The caller's eyes gleamed in guarded delight as she unfolded the paper and spread it out on her knee. "Accordin' to this account, he is marryin' the richest an' most popular woman in the State. I reckon everybody that reads society news has heard about Irene Mitchell."
"Irene Mitchell!" Ann gasped, rising in her chair, her slate and pencil sliding to the floor. "That isn't so. It isn't so, is it, Dolly? Why, what ails—" The half-scream was not finished. Dolly was reeling as if about to fall, her little hands pressed helplessly to her face. John Webb sprang quickly to her side. He threw his arm about her.
"Dry up all that!" he yelled, furiously. "Dry up, I say! She's sick."
Feeling his support, Dolly revived a little, and he led her out into the hall and saw her go slowly up the stairs to her room. As for Mrs. Drake and Ann, they had pounced on the paper and had it spread out before their wide-open eyes. Sally-Lou was now on her feet. She had gone to the door, seen Dolly's wilting form disappear at the head of the stairs, and was now breathlessly feasting on the bewildered chagrin of the stunned mother and daughter.
Ann finished reading sooner than her mother. Pale and indignant, she turned to the caller. She had opened her mouth when John Webb promptly covered it with his red paw. "Come out o' here!" he ordered, sharply. "You go up-stairs an' 'tend to Dolly. She ain't well. She's been ailin' off an' on for a week. You school-children have deviled the life out of the poor thing. What are you all talkin' about, anyway? Mostyn told me an' Dolly all about him an' that woman. We knowed all along that he was goin' to git married, but it was a sort o' secret betwixt us three."
Astounded, and warningly pinched on the arm, Ann, with a lingering backward look, left the room and reluctantly climbed the stairs.
"You'll have to excuse me, Miss Sally-Lou, here's your paper," Mrs. Drake was slowly recovering discretion. "I'll have to see about Dolly. John's right, she ain't well—she ain't—oh, my Lord, I don't know what to make of it!"
"I see she is sort o' upset," Miss Sally-Lou said, "an I don't wonder. I oughtn't to have sprung it so sudden-like. I'll tell you all good day. I'll have to run along. If thar's anything I kin do for Dolly just let me know. I'm a good hand about a sick-bed, an' I know how to give medicine. If Dolly gets worse, send word to me, an' I'll step right over. This may go hard with her. You know I think that idle scamp might 'a' had better to do than—"
But Mrs. Drake, obeying her brother's imperative nod, was moving toward the stairs. Sally-Lou and Webb were left together. Her glance fell before the fiercest glare she had ever seen shoot from a masculine eye, and yet Webb's freckled face was valiantly digging up a smile.