Mrs. Simpson Kennard was sitting in her pretty morning room with her baby on her knee. She looked across the room at her sister who was paying her a visit. “I wish you had a little child to love, Isabelle. It makes life so different. I am just wrapped up in Florimel.”
“For pity’s sake, Marion,” cried Isabelle peevishly, “don’t you grow to be one of those tiresome women who think the whole world is interested in a baby’s tooth! I certainly do not echo your wish. I think children are a nuisance.”
Marion caught up her baby in dismay. “Why, Isabelle, just think how much they do for us! They broaden our sympathies – I read that only the other day, and – – “
“Broaden your fiddlesticks!” said Isabelle contemptuously. “Easy for you to talk when you have everything you want! If you had to live in that poky little house in Marlborough, I guess you would not find anything very broadening about them!
“It is perfectly preposterous to think of our being reduced to such a style of living!” she continued, as Mrs. Kennard strove to soothe her baby’s injured feelings with kisses. “Just fancy, only one servant! I never thought a Hildreth would fall so low.”
“But you and Mamma are comfortable, Isabelle. It is not as if you were forced to do anything.”
“Do anything!” echoed Isabelle. “Are you going crazy?”
“Well, see how hard Evadne has to work? and she is a Hildreth as well as you.”
“Evadne!” said Isabelle sarcastically, “with her nerves of steel and spine of adamant! Evadne will never kill herself with work. She is too much taken up with her wealthy private patients. You should have seen her driving round with the Hawthornes in their elegant carriage And I reduced to dependence upon the electric cars! I don’t see how she manages to worm her way into people’s confidence as she seems to do. I couldn’t, but then I have such a horror of being forward.”
“All doors are open to those who smile.’ I believe that is the reason, Isabelle.”
“Stuff and nonsense!” was Miss Hildreth’s inelegant reply.
“She is a dear girl, Isabelle. Why will you persist in disliking her so?”
“Oh, pray spare me any panegyrics!” said Isabelle carelessly. “It is bad enough to have Louis blazing up like a volcano if one has the temerity to mention her ladyship’s name.”
“How is Louis?” asked Mrs. Kennard, finding she was treading on dangerous ground.
“Oh, the same as usual. He looks like a ghost, and is about as cheerful as a cemetery. He spends his holidays going over musty old letters in papa’s desk. I’m sure I don’t see what fun he finds in it. It is so selfish in him, when he might be giving mamma and me some pleasure – but Louis never did think of anyone but himself. One day I found him stretched across the desk and it gave me such a fright! You know what a state my nerves are in. I thought he was in a fit or something, – he just looked like death, and he didn’t seem to hear me when I called. He had a large envelope addressed to papa in his hand and there was another under his arm that didn’t look as if it had ever been opened, but I couldn’t see the address. I ran for mamma, but before we got back he was gone and the letters with him. Whatever it was, it has had an awful effect upon him, though he won’t give us any satisfaction, you know how provoking he is. It is my belief he is going into decline, and I have such a horror of contagious diseases!
“If Evadne is so anxious to work, why doesn’t she come and help mamma and me? It is the least she could do after all we have done for her, but as mamma says, “It is just a specimen of the ingratitude there is in the world.’”
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