"Then will you come to me again, when you return and tell me _all_ about it?" with a faint pressure of her fingers in his.

"May I, Madame? Ah, that will be a privilege indeed!" and stooping he kissed her hand.

A moment later they had joined the others.

CHAPTER XII

"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 gla.s.ses.

"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 pa.s.sing 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 indors.e.m.e.nt for those people who know nothing about them. It places them before the public in an una.s.sailable 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 quant.i.ties 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 pa.s.sed 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 circ.u.mstances 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?"