The girl brought the horse up with a sharp turn at the steps, thereby causing consternation to a brood of chickens, which scattered in every direction. Then she threw the bridle to George Washington and slipped to the ground.
“My,” she exclaimed, fanning herself with her hat, “it is pretty warm riding.”
“Now don’t sit down there and take cold,” expostulated her mother; “here, put my shawl around you.”
Nannie, who had dropped down on the steps, laughed and shook her head. “A shawl in October! who ever heard of such a thing. I am all right, mummie; don’t take it off—it looks so pretty on you.” She smiled at her mother, who was not proof against this bit of flattery, though her only manifestation was a closer drawing of the shawl around her shoulders. “Don’t you feel very well, mummie?” the girl asked, conscious that the atmosphere was not altogether salubrious.
“Well enough,” replied the older woman, flipping a letter nervously between her fingers as she rocked to and fro.
“Your mother has heard from your cousin Julie,” volunteered the Colonel.
“Let me see the letter, quick, mummie. When are they coming?”
“They are not coming at all,” replied Mrs. Driscoe, with a resentful toss of her head, meanwhile thrusting the obnoxious letter into her pocket.
Nan’s face fell. “Oh, mummie, can’t I see the letter, please?”
“Certainly not. It is full of crazy ideas that are most unbecoming in a young girl, and I don’t consider such things proper for you to read.”
Colonel Driscoe gave an apologetic cough and opened his lips as if to speak, but apparently thought better of it and studied his finger nails with unwonted interest. Nan drew cabalistic signs on the steps with her riding crop, and for some moments the silence was unbroken save for the half chuckling singing of George Washington, who was turning somersaults near by. Then Nannie said wistfully:
“May I know why the girls are not coming, please?”
The Colonel started to explain, but was overruled by his wife, who preferred to give her own interpretation of the case. Accordingly she poured out a torrent of abuse, in which her own individual woes over what she called their “disobedience” were so involved with a mixed statement of facts that Nan might have been led to believe that her cousins were lost to all sense of propriety had she not thoroughly understood her mother. As it was she listened quietly, sympathized with and petted her, and told her not to bother her head any more about two naughty girls in the North. She was a girl of considerable tact, this Nannie, for all that the whole establishment “babied” her, and she knew just how to smooth down her mother’s ruffled plumage; so that Mrs. Driscoe, after a good, comfortable cry, which was a great relief to her overwrought feelings, was persuaded to go indoors and lie down to recover from the shock of the morning.