Mrs.
Baxter's character needed no dissection; it was a consistent whole,
clear as crystal and as rigid.
It was still some five weeks before Christmas that Maggie became aware
of what, as a British maiden, she ought, of course, to have known long
before--namely, that she was thinking just a little too much about a
young man who, so far as was apparent, thought nothing at all about
her. It was true that once he had passed through a period of
sentimentality in her regard; but the extreme discouragement it had
met with had been enough.
Her discovery happened in this way.
Mrs. Baxter opened a letter one morning, smiling contentedly to
herself.
"From Laurie," she said. Maggie ceased eating toast for a second, to
listen.
Then the old lady uttered a small cry of dismay.
"He thinks he can't come, after all," she said.
Maggie had a moment of very acute annoyance.
"What does he say? Why not?" she asked.
There was a pause. She watched Mrs. Baxter's lips moving slowly, her
glasses in place; saw the page turned, and turned again. She took
another piece of toast. There are few things more irritating than to
have fragments of a letter doled out piecemeal.
"He doesn't say.
Pages:
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110