Mrs. Drake seemed not to have heard these give-and-take platitudes. She raised her sheet to the level of her eyes and creased the hem of it with her needle-pricked fingers. "What sort o' cloth are you goin' to use in your waist?" she asked.
"White lawn," said Sally-Lou. "I got a rale good grade in a remnant in town yesterday at a bargain. It was a little dirty at the edges, but I'm goin' to trim them off."
"I'd make it plain, if I was you," Mrs. Drake advised. "At your age an' mine it doesn't look well to fix up fancy."
"Humph! I don't know as you an' me are so nigh the same--"
The final word was caught up by an impulsive snicker, which Webb muffled under his hat.
"Oh, I don't mean to say that I am not some older," Mrs. Drake floundered. "Bein' as you are unmarried, it wouldn't be polite for me with as old children as I got to--" "Oh, I'm not mad about it!" Miss Sally-Lou declared, hastily. "I know I'm not as young as Dolly an' her crowd o' girls."
The spinster now frowned resentfully. Nothing could have angered her more than such an allusion made in the presence of the amused bachelor. She nursed her fury in silence for a moment, only to become more set in the grim purpose of her present visit.
"Huh, wait till I git through with 'em!" she thought; then, as if merely to change a disagreeable subject for a happier one, she turned directly to Dolly.
"What do you hear from Mr. Mostyn?" she asked, in quite a tone of indifference.
There was marked hesitation on the part of Dolly, but Ann was more prompt. Her slate and pencil rattled as she dropped them in her lap. "He hasn't written a word," she said, staring eagerly, as if the visitor might help solve a problem which had absorbed her far more than the example on which she was now working.
"You don't say!" Miss Sally-Lou's eyes fired straight gleams at Dolly, as if Dolly herself had made the astounding revelation. "Why, I thought you an' him was powerful thick. Well, well, I reckon he told you all thar was to tell before he left. Young men usually are proud o' things like that, an' can't hold 'em in. Well, I hope he will be happy. I don't wish him no harm if he is high up in the world an' rich. I know I was awfully surprised when I read it in to-day's paper." She thrust a steady hand into her pocket, pushing her right foot well forward to give the rustling sheet better egress. There was silence in the room. Webb glanced at his sister and at Ann. No one, save the tormentor, noticed Dolly, who, pale as death, a groping in her eyes, and lips parted, stood behind her sister's chair.