Nina was surprised by her sister’s censorious attitude.
“But they do try to be neighborly!” she protested.
“I don’t care!” said Rose, with unwonted heat. “I don’t like them, and I
don’t want anything to do with them. They’re a family of--savages!”
“Oh, Rose! When that poor little Margie brings us flowers from her own
garden every day!”
“Yes, because that Bill told her to!” thought Rose. But aloud she said:
“Brings them! She pretty nearly throws them at us.”
“That’s just her way.”
“Well, I don’t like her way, and I don’t want her flowers, and I don’t
like any of those Morgans, or anything they do. I never imagined such an
ill-tempered, quarrelsome family.”
“I know,” said Nina, seriously. “And I think it’s pitiful.”
“Pitiful! To snarl and snap at one another--”
“Yes,” said Nina. “Because there’s something so splendid about them, in
spite of all that--something so honest and fine.”
“Fine!” cried Rose, with a snort.
“You must have noticed. They’re rough and unmannerly, but they’re never
vulgar. And they speak well. I think they’ve come down in the world,
Rose.”
“They certainly have!” Rose agreed. “Down to the bottom. Nina, you’re
sentimental about your Morgans. You’ve seen how they live. A coarse,
ugly life, without one gracious touch. They eat in the kitchen, on a
table covered with oilcloth.”
“Yes, and it’s a spotless kitchen, and everything about them is
wholesome.”
“It’s no use,” Rose objected. “I don’t like them, and I won’t like them.
Now, you sit here on the veranda and read. I’m going to buy the Sunday
dinner.”
“I’ll come with you,” said Nina, but she was glad Rose would not let
her. It was a long walk, and she felt tired, very tired and languid. She
did not want Rose to know how tired she was, or how worried.
It seemed that their financial affairs were not definitely settled, as
they had believed. Mr. Doyle, the lawyer, kept writing to her letters
she could not quite understand, anxious, almost desperate letters,
accusing himself of “criminal folly”; begging her forgiveness, and
making all sorts of promises. He wrote always to her, never to Rose, and
she was glad of that, for she did not want Rose to know.
But she was so tired. She tried valiantly to do her share, to be a good
comrade to her beloved sister; but she was not strong, either in body or
in spirit; she was a gentle soul; she could endure, but she could not
fight. She wanted only to live in peace and good will, harmless and
lovely as a flower.
It was a Saturday afternoon; Gilbert had come home early in his little
car, and he and Margie had at once begun to quarrel fiercely.
“Bill told you to take me to the village in the car, if I wanted!” she
declared.
“Do you good to walk!” said her brother.
“I won’t walk!”
“All right! Then stay home!”
Presently the back door slammed, in the Morgan fashion, and Nina hoped
he was going away. It hurt her to hear these two young creatures
quarrel so; she always wished that she had some magic word to stop them,
to bring quiet to their stormy spirits. She was waiting for the sound of
his engine starting up, when, to her surprise, she saw him standing on
the path before her.
“Mrs. De Haaven,” he said, “can you spare me a few minutes?”
“With pleasure!” she answered, as if this amazing request were quite a
matter of course. “Come up on the veranda, won’t you?”
He did come up, and when she asked him, sat down opposite her. He was
silent for a few moments, and Nina studied him with frank and kindly
curiosity. For the first time she saw what a remarkably handsome boy he
was, a little haggard, a little too thin, perhaps, but tall and sinewy,
and notably distinguished.
Yes, that was the word; he was distinguished looking, with his thin,
rather arrogant face, his slender, well-kept hands, his neat dark suit.
He was not surly to-day, and not shy or awkward; he looked at her
candidly as he spoke.
“I hope you won’t mind,” he said. “But I knew _you_ could tell me. If
you’d give me your advice. I’ve got an invitation--but perhaps I’d
better show it to you.”
He took a letter out of his pocket and handed it to her. It read: