"Oh, she's in love, just in love," said Miss Mehitable. "It's too funny to see her. She wants to wait on the child by inches; but clothes--Ben! You should have seen Geraldine in my--a--my--a wrapper last night!" Miss Mehitable gave vent to another stifled chuckle. "She was just lost in it, and we had to hunt for her and fish her out and put her into something of Charlotte's. Charlotte was tickled to death." Again the speaker's cushiony fist gave Ben's arm an emphatic nudge.
He smiled sympathetically. "I suppose so," he said; "but aren't you going to town to-day to buy her some things?"
"What with?" Miss Upton grew sober and extended both hands palms upward. "I've been thinkin' about it while I was workin' here. She's got to have clothes. I shouldn't wonder if some o' my customers had things they could let us have. Once your mother would 'a' been my first thought."
"Hand-me-downs?" said Ben, flushing. "Nothing doing. Surely you have credit at the stores."
"Yes, I have, but it's my habit to pay my bills," was the defiant reply, "and that girl needs everything. I can't buy 'em all."
Ben patted her arm. "Don't speak so loud, you'll wake the baby. You buy the things, Mehit. I'll see that they're paid for."
"My mother will have nothing to do with it."
"Why, you ain't even self-supportin' yet," declared Miss Upton bluntly. "'T ain't anything to your discredit, of course; you ain't ready," she added kindly.
Ben's steady eyes kept on looking into hers and his low voice replied: "My father died suddenly, you remember. He had destroyed one will and not yet made another. I have money of my own, quite a lot of it, to tell the truth. Now if you'd just let me fly you over to town--"
Miss Mehitable started. "Fly me over, you lunatic!"
"Well, let us go in the train, then. I'll go with you. I know in a general way just what she ought to wear. Soft silky things and a--a droopy hat."
"Ben Barry, you've taken leave o' your senses. Don't you know that everything I get her, that poor child will want to pay for--work, and earn the money? If I buy anything for her, it's goin' to be somethin' she can pay for before she's ninety."
Ben sighed. "All right, Mehit! have it your own way, only get a move. I can't take her out till she gets a hat."