Part 24 (1/2)
Whereupon Let.i.tia chuckles with ill-suppressed amus.e.m.e.nt and gives it as her opinion that ”dear Molly isn't as bad as she thinks herself.”
John has done his duty, has driven the melancholy young man to the station, and very nearly out of his wits--by insisting on carrying on a long and tedious argument that lasts the entire way, waiting pertinaciously for a reply to every one of his questions.
This has taken some time, more especially as the train was late and the back drive hilly; yet when at length he reaches his home he finds his wife and Molly still deep in the mysteries of the toilet.
”Well?” says his sister, as he stands in the doorway regarding them silently. As she speaks she allows the dejected expression of two hours ago to return to her features, her lids droop a little over her eyes, her forehead goes up, the corners of her mouth go down. She is in one instant a very afflicted Molly. ”Well?” she says.
”He isn't well at all,” replies John, with a dismal shake of the head and as near an imitation of Molly's rueful countenance as he can manage at so short a notice; ”he is very bad. I never saw a worse case in my life. I doubt if he will last out the day. I don't know how you regard it, but I call it cruelty to animals.”
”You need not be unfeeling,” says Molly, reproachfully, ”and I won't listen to you making fun of him behind his back. You wouldn't before his face.”
”How do you know?” As though weighing the point. ”I never saw him funny until to-day. He was on the verge of tears the entire way. It was lucky I was beside him, or he would have drenched the new cus.h.i.+ons. For shame's sake he refrained before me, but I know he is in floods by this.”
”He is not,” says Molly, indignantly. ”Crying, indeed! What an idea! He is far too much of a man for that.”
”I am a man too,” says John, who seems to find a rich harvest of delight in the contemplation of Luttrell's misery. ”And once, before we were married, when Let.i.tia treated me with disdain, I gave way to my feelings to such an extent that----”
”Really, John,” interposes his wife, ”I wish you would keep your stupid stories to yourself, or else go away. We are very busy settling about Molly's things.”
”What things? Her tea-things,--her playthings? Ah! poor little Molly!
her last nice new one is gone.”
”Letty, I hope you don't mind, dear,” says Molly, lifting a dainty china bowl from the table near her. ”Let us trust it won't break; but, whether it does or not, I must and will throw it at John.”
”She should at all events have one pretty new silk dress,” murmurs Let.i.tia, vaguely, whose thoughts ”are with her heart, and that is far away,” literally buried, so to speak, in the depths of her wardrobe.
”She could not well do without it. Molly,”--with sudden inspiration,--”you shall have mine. That dove-color always looks pretty on a girl, and I have only worn it once. It can easily be made to fit you.”
”I wish, Let.i.tia, you would not speak to me like that,” says Molly, almost angrily, though there are tears in her eyes. ”Do you suppose I want to rob you? I have no doubt you would give me every gown you possess, if I so willed it, and leave yourself nothing. Do remember I am going to Herst more out of spite and curiosity than anything else, and don't care in the least how I look. It is very unkind of you to say such things.”
”You are the kindest soul in the world, Letty,” says John from the doorway; ”but keep your silk. Molly shall have one too.” After which he decamps.
”That is very good of John,” says Molly. ”The fact is, I haven't a penny of my own,--I never have a week after I receive my allowance,--so I must only do the best I can. If I don't like it, you know, I can come home. It is a great thing to know, Letty, that _you_ will be glad to have me, whether I am well dressed or very much the reverse.”
”Exactly. And there is this one comfort also, that you look well in anything. By the bye, you must have a maid. You shall take Sarah, and we can get some one in until you come back to us. That”--with a smile--”will prevent your leaving us too long to our own devices. You will understand without telling what a loss the fair Sarah will be.”
”You are determined I shall make my absence felt,” says Molly, with a half-smile. ”Really, Letty, I don't like----”
”But I do,” says Letty. ”I don't choose you to be one whit behind any one else at Herst. Without doubt they will beat you in the matter of clothes; but what of that? I have known many t.i.tled people have a fine disregard of apparel.”
”So have I,” returns Molly, gayly. ”Indeed, were I a man, possessed with a desire to be mistaken for a lord, I would go to the meanest 'old clo' shop and purchase there the seediest garments and the most dilapidated hat (with a tendency toward greenness), and a pair of boots with a patch on the left side, and, having equipped myself in them, saunter down the 'shady side of Pall Mall' with a sure and certain conviction that I was 'quite the thing.' Should my ambitious longings soar as high as a dukedom, I would add to the above costume a patch on the right boot as well, and--questionable linen.”
”Well,” says Let.i.tia, with a sigh, ”I hope Marcia is a nice girl, and that she will be kind to you.”
”So do I,”--with a shrug,--”but from her writing I am almost sure she isn't.”
CHAPTER X.
”What a dream was here!