And tightening up his necktie–a scarlet creation of much pride–he pulled his hat over his eyes, as one who has great affairs under it, and marched double-quick out of the office.
You may be sure that some kind friend told the Morton 492girls of what was in store for them, the kind friend being Mr. George Brotherton, who being thoroughly married, regarded any secret from his wife in the light of a real infidelity. So he told her all that he and Market Street knew. Now the news of the party–a party in whose preparations they were to have no share, roused in the Misses Morton, and their married sister, jointly and severally, that devil of suspicion which always tormented their dreams.
“And, Emma,” gasped Martha, when Emma came over for her daily visit, “just listen! Mrs. Herdicker is having the grandest dress made for the party! She told the girls in the store she had twenty-seven dollars’ worth of jet on it–just jet alone.” Here the handsome Miss Morton turned pale with the gravity of the news. “She told the girls to-day, this very afternoon, that she was going to take the three o’clock morning train right after the party for New York to do her fall buying. Fall buying, indeed! Fall buying,” the handsome Miss Morton’s voice thickened and she cried, “just because papa’s got a little money, she thinks–”
But what she thought Miss Morton never said, for Mrs. Brotherton, still familiar with the gossip of the schoolhouse, cut in to say: “And, Martha, what do you think those Copini children say? They say father’s got their father’s orchestra to practice all the old sentimental music you ever heard of–‘Silver Threads Among the Gold,’ and ‘Do You Love Me, Molly Darling,’ and ‘Lorena,’ and ‘Robin Adair,’–and oh,” cried Mrs. Brotherton, shaking a hopeless head, “I don’t know what other silly things.”
“And yes, girls,” exclaimed the youngest Miss Morton flippantly, “he’s sent around to the Music School for Miss Howe to come and sing ‘O Promise Me’!”
“The idea!” cried the new Mrs. Brotherton.
“Why, the very idea!” broke out the handsome Miss Morton, sitting by the dining-room table.
“The idea!” echoed the youngest Miss Morton, putting away her music roll, and adding in gasping excitement: “And that isn’t the worst. He sent word for her to sing it just after the band had finished playing the wedding march!”
493Now terror came into the house of Morton, and when the tailor’s boy brought home a package, the daughters tore it open ruthlessly, and discovered–as they sat limply with it spread out in its pristine beauty on the sofa before them–a white broadcloth dinner suit–with a watered silk vest. Half an hour later, when a pleated dress shirt with pearl buttons came, it found three daughters sitting with tight lips waiting for their father–and six tigers’ eyes glaring hungrily at the door through which he was expected. At six o’clock, when they heard his nimble step on the porch, they looked at one another in fear, and as he burst into the room, each looked decisively at the other as indicating a command to begin.
He came in enveloping them in one all-encompassing hug and cried: