She breathed injunctions to the very step of the ’bus.
In the ’bus Dwight leaned forward:
“See that you play post-office squarely, Lulu!”
he called, and threw back his head and lifted his
eyebrows.
In the train he turned tragic eyes to his wife.
“Ina,” he said. “It’s
ma. And she’s going to die.
It can’t be....”
Ina said: “But you’re going to help
her, Dwight, just being there with her.”
It was true that the mere presence of the man would
bring a kind of fresh life to that worn frame.
Tact and wisdom and love would speak through him and
minister.
Toward the end of their week’s absence the letter
from Ninian came.
Lulu took it from the post-office when she went for
the mail that evening, dressed in her dark red gown.
There was no other letter, and she carried that one
letter in her hand all through the streets. She
passed those who were surmising what her story might
be, who were telling one another what they had heard.
But she knew hardly more than they. She passed
Cornish in the doorway of his little music shop, and
spoke with him; and there was the letter. It was
so that Dwight’s foster mother’s postal
card might have looked on its way to be mailed.
Cornish stepped down and overtook her.
“Oh, Miss Lulu. I’ve got a new song
or two—”
She said abstractedly: “Do. Any night.
To-morrow night—could you—”
It was as if Lulu were too preoccupied to remember
to be ill at ease.
Cornish flushed with pleasure, said that he could
indeed.
“Come for supper,” Lulu said.
Oh, could he? Wouldn’t that be....
Well, say! Such was his acceptance.
He came for supper. And Di was not at home.
She had gone off in the country with Jenny and Bobby,
and they merely did not return.
Mrs. Bett and Lulu and Cornish and Monona supped alone.
All were at ease, now that they were alone. Especially
Mrs. Bett was at ease. It became one of her young
nights, her alive and lucid nights. She was there.
She sat in Dwight’s chair and Lulu sat in Ina’s
chair. Lulu had picked flowers for the table—a
task coveted by her but usually performed by Ina.
Lulu had now picked Sweet William and had filled a
vase of silver gilt taken from the parlour. Also,
Lulu had made ice-cream.
“I don’t see what Di can be thinking of,”
Lulu said. “It seems like asking you under
false—” She was afraid of “pretences”
and ended without it.
Cornish savoured his steaming beef pie, with sage.
“Oh, well!” he said contentedly.
“Kind of a relief, I think, to have her
gone,” said Mrs. Bett, from the fulness of something
or other.
“Mother!” Lulu said, twisting her smile.
“Why, my land, I love her,” Mrs. Bett
explained, “but she wiggles and chitters.”
Cornish never made the slightest effort, at any time,
to keep a straight face. The honest fellow now
laughed loudly.
