"Those Dale girls are certainly remarkable!"
"I have always maintained that, Mary."
"Remarkably surprising, I mean," corrected Miss Ware, fingering the
coffee-cups noisily in rather an irritating manner as it seemed to her
brother, who was running over his voluminous morning mail.
"What have they done now?" he asked looking up at her over his glasses.
"To my mind a most unlady-like, vulgar thing. Here it is if you want to
see." A second look at a card in her hand before passing it over caused
her to exclaim, "No! Is it possible! Mrs. Lennox has taken them up! Her
name is actually printed on the card--it is the most astonishing thing I
ever heard of!"
"If you mean their business cards, Mary, I was consulted and saw the
original draft and recommended the printer. Um," examining the card
critically, "he has turned out an excellent piece of work, artistic and
quiet in tone. I thought he could be relied upon."
"Philip, you are too exasperating! I believe if those girls sold papers
on the street corner you would think it the finest thing ever done!"
"I probably should," he rejoined imperturbably. "As for these cards,
they are something to be proud of! 'Salads, croquettes, fancy
sandwiches, jellies, salted nuts, etc., etc.,'" he went on, running his
eye down the list. "Gad! how they have pushed ahead! They mailed five
hundred of these yesterday," looking over at his sister, "and I fancy
Radnor people will not be slow in responding."
"Oh! Mrs. Lennox's name will be an alluring bait," she said. "People
will patronize them because she does, for a time, but they make a great
mistake in relying upon her; this is just one of her fads."
"I can't understand, Mary, how you take such delight in imputing
disagreeable motives to people. Mrs. Lennox is not patronizing the
girls--she has great respect for them. Neither are they relying on her
in the least. They rely only on their own skill and ability to do their
work to the satisfaction of their customers. Mrs. Lennox has kindly
allowed them to add her name by way of reference or indorsement for
those people who know nothing about them. It places them before the
public in an unassailable position."
"Are they going to open a shop?" asked Miss Ware, a little
superciliously, interested in spite of herself.
"No, they mean to keep right on as they are, making things only to
order. They will have no stock on hand. It is the best they can do under
the circumstances, for it is impossible to branch out to any
considerable extent while their father needs them close at hand."
"Good gracious, Philip! you wouldn't advise a shop?" She made a wry face
over her coffee, in which, in the excitement of the discussion, she had
neglected to put any sugar.
"I don't know," the Doctor replied, stroking his beard thoughtfully, "I
am not sure. Being conducted in their home, a business such as theirs
must of necessity be limited, and the profits small. One must do things
in large quantities to make money. I have thought a good deal about a
little shop--it may come to that eventually, but I am not sure that I
want it to. They are not going to hold out forever; as it is they are
living on their nerves,--they have been too delicately reared to stand
such work." He pushed his plate away and folding his arms on the table
leaned forward confidentially. "Mary," he said, "I wish I could get you
to care for those girls--to love all that is so sweet and lovable in
them."
"Perhaps I'd care more for them, Philip, if you did not care so much."
"What!" in astonishment, "why you aren't--you can't be jealous of them,
Mary?"
"I don't know," she replied, looking away from him, "women are queer,
even we old ones--perhaps we're queerest of all!"
"Why, Mary, what nonsense to be jealous of two little girls who regard
me in the light of a venerable uncle."
"I should not call a fine-looking man in the prime of life 'venerable,'"
said his sister resentfully, for she was immensely proud of her
distinguished brother. "I am sure it would be very odd if they did not
admire you for more reasons than one!"
"It is not a question of their admiring me, Mary, but of my admiring
them. And I am not the only one. People are beginning to talk about them
aside from Mrs. Lennox. Mary, I want them to marry!"
"Marry!" she exclaimed. "No eligible man would marry girls who cook and
deliver boxes at people's doors and do goodness knows what besides."
"You are very much mistaken, and while you cling to your absurd opinions
I don't think it is desirable to continue the conversation." He rose
with dignity and passed into his office.
Miss Ware followed him. "Philip," she queried with feminine curiosity,
"had you any one special in mind?"
The Doctor was lost in the depths of the morning paper.
"Philip, I--I dare say I expressed myself rather strongly;" (this from
Miss Ware was a great concession). "_Was_ there any one special in your
mind?"
"And what if there was, Mary?" answered the Doctor, slightly appeased
but not wholly mollified, "would you really care to know?"
"Yes, I should. It is so unusual for you to be developing match-making
proclivities."
"That is true. I seldom think of such matters and, mind you, I do not by
any means think that girls should marry just for the sake of
marrying--that it is the end and aim of their existence--but in the case
of the Dales my heart is set upon it."
"I thought you approved of women who were self-supporting," remarked his
sister, considerably surprised at the view he presented.
"So I do, when circumstances require it or their temperaments demand
independence and they are properly trained to stand shoulder to shoulder
with men in business or professional life. But these little girls are
wrestling with the bare problems of existence, working with the nervous
tension of a high-bred race-horse, using up their vitality over pots and
kettles and pans and smiling, smiling all the time as if they liked it!"
"Why, I thought they did like it!" Verily this was a morning of
surprises.
"Like it!" cried the Doctor, trying to keep down the anger in his voice,
"would you like it to be taken out of a life of keen enjoyment--a life
crowded with incidents and continuous change of scene such as the Dales
lived and be put down in a comparatively strange place, unrecognized
socially, without young companionship and, worse still, to see a father
whom they adore perfectly helpless and dependent on them for every
mouthful of bread! It is a wonder to me the spirit is not crushed out of
them!"
"I never quite thought of it like that, Philip."
"Of course you didn't, Mary. You thought they were rebellious,
head-strong young things who liked being cramped up in a kitchen all
day, beating their arms off over batches of dough and stirring
mayonnaise until they are ready to fall into the bowl from sheer
exhaustion! But I want you to look at it differently, I do indeed, and I
want you to help me put a new interest in their lives."
"I will, Philip, there is my hand on it."
The Doctor clasped it warmly. "What do you think of Landor?" he said.
"Kenneth Landor? Does he know them?"
"He met Hester here one day and was immensely taken with her. Afterward
he ran across them in my house in the apartment below them. There is an
invalid boy there whom Kenneth heard of--you know he is always finding
out-of-the-way people and going to see them. He told me he only saw the
girls there a moment, but he's taken a violent fancy to the boy, who
talks about Julie and Hester by the hour together. Landor wants to meet
the girls again--he has asked me to ask him here to meet them, but I
have always put him off on one pretext or another, knowing it was
useless to try to do anything while you felt as you did, but now you
will arrange something, won't you, Mary? You have such a talent for
little parties."
"The girls won't come. Have you heard them speak of Kenneth?"
"Only casually, most casually. Hester always gets the talk off on
something else when I mention him."
"That's a good sign."
"A good sign!" said the Doctor, much puzzled, "I thought it was a bad
one."
"Oh! you men," laughed Miss Ware, "you don't know anything. When a girl
does not discuss a man it is usually because he interests her. Do you
think," she said seriously, "the girls, if they knew, would like your
disposing of one of them in this calm fashion?"
"Mary, I beg of you, do not misunderstand me. I have no wish to dispose
of them. Kenneth may not fall in love with either of them, though I
don't see how he can help it" (this under his breath), "and neither of
them may care in the least for him, but it would gladden my heart if the
thing could be. He is an admirable fellow in every way, and during the
past month he has gone into business with his father. Did you know that?
There is no doubt that he could make a comfortable home for them all.
Even if nothing comes of it I want him to know them--he'll be a better
man all his life for knowing them--and I want them to have a little
diversion, a little outside interest to take them out of the rut. I'll
leave it all to you, Mary," he ended, with a comfortable feeling of
security.
"I suppose, you know," she said as she was leaving, "that both the girls
have had several offers of marriage."
"No, I didn't know."
"Mr. Dale mentioned it when he was discussing the question of my
chaperoning them this winter. He said he wanted me to understand that
the girls were in some ways much older than their years and that having
been, through their constant companionship with him, thrown much into
the society of men, it was natural they should have had that experience.
He also said that neither girl had the slightest desire to marry for the
present or had ever shown any preference for one man above another. I
fancied from what he said that their manner toward men was frank, rather
a sort of 'camaraderie' than the silly sentimental attitude some girls
affect."
"You are perfectly right, Mary, they have a most engaging frankness of
manner."
"May I ask you one thing, Philip?"
"Certainly," suddenly apprehensive of the question coming.
"How do you know they are beating their arms off over batches of
dough"--the phrase seemed to have stuck in her mind--"I mean how did you
realize it? Did they tell you?"
"Not they;" secretly relieved, "I hear it from Bridget. She worries her
faithful old heart out about them and vows me to secrecy when she
confides in me, for she says they would never forgive her if they knew
she took it so hard."
"Good old Bridget," he said to himself, for his sister had vanished
without another word, "how my little girls would scold her!"
Good old Bridget indeed, who told much, but was far too loyal to tell
all she knew!