"
"The tiresome boy!" she said querulously, but without alarm.
"What are we to do? You see, Mr. Morton thinks we ought to do
something. He mentions a Mr. Cathcart."
Mrs. Baxter reached out for the toast-rack.
"My dear, there's nothing to be done. You know what Laurie is. It'll
only make him worse."
Maggie looked at her uneasily.
"I wish we could do something," she said.
"My dear, he'd have written to me--Mr. Morton, I mean--if Laurie had
been really unwell. You see he only says he doesn't attend to his work
as he ought."
Maggie took up the letter, put it carefully back into the envelope,
and went on with breakfast. There was nothing more to be said just
then.
But she was uneasy, and after breakfast went out into the garden, spud
in hand, to think it all over, with the letter in her pocket.
Certainly the letter was not alarming _per se_, but _per
accidens_--that is to say, taking into account who it was that had
written, she was not so sure. She had met Mr. Morton but once, and had
formed of him the kind of impression that a girl would form of such a
man in the hours of a week-end--a brusque, ordinary kind of barrister
without much imagination and a good deal of shrewd force.
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