"A sign-painter's daughter!" said Molly Glendenning, with a
shrug of the shoulders. "Well, I for one do not care to know her.
People educated above their station in life are apt to be presuming.
It might make matters a trifle awkward next winter if she should
attempt to push her acquaintance when we go back to town."
"It will be easy enough to ignore them," answered her cousin Cora,
"and I shall do it with a vengeance. It is one thing to be nice and
friendly with shopgirls and factory hands, and quite another to take
up with the well-to-do middle class. Give them an inch and they'll
take an ell every time. First thing you know they'll turn round and
patronise you."
The subject was still under discussion when they rose from the table
and followed Molly Glendenning out into the wide hall. "They'll not
stay long!" she exclaimed when they were well out of Miss Philura's
hearing; "I'll promise you that. They can push in here if they want
to, but they'll have to learn Marmion's lesson--'The hand of Douglas
is his own!'" She swept her pretty pink palm outward with a tragic
gesture, as she ran lightly up the stairs, and the girls, laughing as
they flocked after her, scattered to their rooms for their afternoon
siesta.
It was in the heat and drowsiness of mid-afternoon that Travis and
Mary Lee reached Wicklett, and stood looking down the long shady
avenue leading to the house.
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