"
Once started on her round of repairs, Wilma found herself viewing the
entire premises from the standpoint of the sharp gray eyes that had
looked so reprovingly at the broken-hinged gate.
"If Tom ever comes here again," she vowed to herself, "he shall not
see this grand old place in such a pitiful state of dilapidation. I
can at least see that the porch floor has paint, and the garden chairs
more than three legs apiece. I feel that I have the making in me of a
first-class carpenter." So here and there she went, hammering, and
screwing, and puttying, and painting, finding an outlet for much
latent energy, and a use for her long repressed, although long
suspected mechanical ability.
Claribel's plans did not put themselves into practical shape so
readily. For days she went about with a preoccupied air. There was
some mysterious correspondence that Agnes wondered over, many hours
spent in her room with locked doors. Then one day she stole down the
stately stairway with a little valise in her hands.
"You needn't look at me in that way," she whispered, defiantly, as she
met the disapproving gaze of the long line of family portraits. "It is
to keep up your own old traditions that I am doing it."
Then something of the proud spirit of her ancestors seemed to take
possession of her as she passed out of their patronising presence.
Pages:
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91