Part 29 (1/2)

”Oh, I don't know,” was the provoking answer.

Robert Morton bit his lip and moved toward the door, but he had not got further than the sill before she whispered:

”Bob!”

Resolutely he held his peace.

”Please be nice, Bob,” she cooed.

Ah, he was back again, but she had retreated behind the tall rocker.

”I suppose,” she observed, hurtling the words over Jezebel's sleeping form, ”that your aunt will be heartbroken to miss this party. Why don't you run upstairs and let her read the note? Then we can send our regrets when Mr. Snelling goes back to Belleport this noon.”

Obediently the young man sped to do her bidding, and soon Delight heard his voice calling from the upper hall.

”She won't send her regrets. She says she's going. I tell her they will ask her another time, but she insists she feels lots better and was thinking of getting up, anyway. She wants to start putting fresh cuffs on her black cashmere this minute, and do I don't know what.

You'd better come up and stop her.”

But Celestina was not to be stopped. Go she would!

”My shoulder's 'most well anyhow,” she affirmed, ”an' I had planned to go down to supper. Do you think for one minute I'd miss a junket like this? Why, I'd go if it killed me! The Galbraiths are nice folks an'

have been good to Bob and Willie. Besides,” she added with ingratiating candor, ”I want to see where they live. An' they're goin'

to send the automobile for us, that great red one--imagine it! I ain't been in an automobile more'n six times in my whole life. Do you think I'd send my regrets? I'd go if I had to be carried on a stretcher!”

Delight and Robert Morton laughed at her enthusiasm.

”Now you trot straight down stairs, Bob,” went on Celestina energetically, ”an' write Mis' Lee we'll admire to come, all of us.”

”But Aunt Tiny,” put in Delight, ”I'm not going. Somebody must stay here and look after the house.”

”What for?” Celestina demanded. ”The house won't run away, an' if thieves was to ransack it from attic to cellar they'd find nothin'

worth carryin' away. Ridiculous!”

”She says she hasn't anything to wear,” interrupted Bob.

”Delight Hathaway! For shame!” said the elder woman, raising a reproving finger. ”You always look pretty as a picture in anything.

Some folks need fine clothes to set 'em off but you don't. Don't be silly! Why, half the pleasure of Willie an' me would be wiped out if you didn't go, an' likely Bob would be disappointed, too.”

”You bet I would!”

”W--e--ll,” the girl yielded.

”There, that's right, my dear.” Celestina reached out and patted the slender hand. ”Now, Bob, you go along an' write your letter,”

commanded she. ”An' Delight, you bring me up some hot water an' fetch my clean print dress from the hall closet. I kinder think, come to mull it over, that there's fresh cuffs on my cashmere already, but you might look an' see. An' hadn't we better furbish up my bonnet this afternoon? It ain't been touched this season.”

CHAPTER XV

A REVELATION

The morning of the pilgrimage to Belleport was a hectic one in the gray cottage on the bluff. Before breakfast Celestina began preparations, appearing in the kitchen without trace of invalidism and helping Delight hurry the housework out of the way, that the precious hours might be spent in retr.i.m.m.i.n.g the hat of black straw which already had done duty four seasons.