Part 18 (1/2)
Her eyes turned quickly. Colette stood at the curb, her hand on the door of the electric.
”I waited to take you home, dear. Why, what's the matter, Amarilly?
Tears?”
”I thought you wan't goin' to speak to me,” said Amarilly, as she stepped into the brougham and took the seat beside Colette.
”I didn't want to interrupt you and Mr. Meredith, but it's a wonder I knew you. You look so different. You have grown so tall, and what a beautiful dress! Who showed you how to fix your hair so artistically? I never realized you had such beautiful hair, child!”
”I didn't nuther, till he told me.”
”Who, Amarilly? Lord Algernon?”
”No!” scoffed Amarilly, suddenly realizing that her former hero had toppled from his pedestal in her thoughts. ”'Tain't him. It's a new friend I have made. An artist.”
”Oh, Amarilly, you have such distinguished acquaintances! All in the profession, too. Tell me who the artist is.”
”Mr. Derry Phillips. I cleaned his rooms, and he took me to lunch. We ate things like we had to your house.”
”Derry Phillips, the talented young artist! Why, Amarilly, girls are tumbling over each other trying to get attention from him, and he took you to luncheon! Where?”
”To Carter's, and I'm to serve his breakfast and take care of his rooms, and he showed me how to fix my hair and to say 'can' and 'ate.' He's fired the woman what red his rooms.”
”'Merely Mary Ann,'” murmured Colette.
”No,” said Amarilly positively. ”Her name is Miss O'Leary, and she didn't clean the mopboards.”
Colette's gay laughter pealed forth.
”Amarilly, this is the first time, I've laughed this summer, but I must explain something to you. The housekeeper told me that all the children had scarlet fever and were quarantined a long time after we left. I wish I had known it and thought more about you, but--I've had troubles of my own. How did you manage so long with nothing coming in?”
”It was purty hard, but we fetched it,” sighed Amarilly, thinking of the struggles, ”We're doin' fine now again.”
”But, tell me; how did you buy food and things when none of you were working?”
”When your ten dollars was gone, we spent his'n.”
”Whose?”
”Mr. Meredith's. He sent us a ten, too.”
”Oh!” replied Colette frigidly.
”Then the Boarder give us all he hed. Arterwards come dark days until Mr. Vedder sent us a fiver.--Then thar was an orful day when thar wa'n't a cent and we didn't know whar to turn, and then--It saved us.”
”It? What?”
”The surplus. Mr. St. John's surplus. It brung in lots.”