Blue Ruin by Grace Livingston Hill Read Free Book Online Page B

“And just look at Dana! He’ll have to change his clothes. He can’t wear a sweater and a soft collar to meet my friends from New York! And the creases are all out of his trousers! I don’t see how he is going to make that train in time! And he’ll have to wash! He looks a mess!”
    “For pity’s sake do shut up!” said Amelia, riled beyond further endurance. “If he hears you he won’t go at all, and then where will you be?”
    “You don’t seem to realize that it is almost time for the train to be coming in now, Amelia!”
    But Amelia had slammed out into the kitchen and was slatting pots and pans around in a manner that showed she would stand no more nonsense.
    The old lady in her armchair cackled. She knew that Justine would not dare resent that cackle, for was not Justine expecting company who would perhaps stay the whole summer? And the small sum they were to pay for presence in the house. The old lady wondered under her grim smile why she had told Justine she might bring them there anyway? Had it been mere pity for her lonely dependent, or a desire to stir up her daughter-in-law to further good works? She was not sure. At any rate, the visit ought to be good for a little amusement for herself, and there had been precious little of that coming her way for many a long year, especially since she had been crippled.
    Deep down in her heart perhaps the old lady had longed for the voice of a child in the house. “Her little girl,” had been the vague way that Justine had spoken of the offspring of her old friend. But what was this that Amelia had said about Justine wanting Dana to dawdle around after another girl? Was the child grown up? Had Amelia been finding out things?
    “Justine, how old is that child that’s coming?” she suddenly asked, so crisply that Justine started and almost dropped her watch.
    She carefully snapped it shut after a final squint at the second hand that she might give Dana the benefit of the last quarter of a second, and then looked up.
    “Why, I’m not just sure,” she answered nervously. “Excuse me, Grandma, I must let Dana know the time. He can’t realize—”
    “Nonsense!” said the old lady with annoyance. “Dana has a watch and you may be sure he thinks it’s right. Come back here and tell me about that child! I ought to have asked you before!”
    But Justine was off down the flower-bordered flagging to meet Dana.
    “Oh, Dana, deah,” she called eagerly, in the ingratiating tone she affected when she wished to show her superior culture.
    They came in together a moment later, Dana loftily and leisurely, Justine talking vivaciously.
    “And I told her to weah a white flowah in her buttonhole,” she said with an affected giggle, “so you would know her at once. I thought it would be so awkward for you both. And you’re sure you won’t have any difficulty about getting the trunks up at once? She’ll want to dress for dinnah. You know they always dress for dinnah in New Yawk. Dana, deah, you’re a little mussed, did you know it? Would you like me to get you a whisk broom? There’s dust on the cuff of your trouser, deah. Where have you been? You must have been sitting on the ground. Are you suah it was quite dry?”
    “Yer Granny!” blurted the old lady half under her breath. “Justine, stop worrying Dana and come here! I want to know how old that child is!”
    “Oh, Grandma!” giggled Justine nervously. “I really don’t know. She’ll be here in a few minutes and you can see for yourself. Let me see, when did I come heah, what yeah? It was the yeah, no two yeahs after than, that Ella Smith was married. No—I don’t know just when it was. I can run up and look over my file of letters if you must know, Grandma,” she said indulgently, with an anxious eye on the clock.
    “Yer Granny!” said the old lady quite loud this time. “You’ve got something up your sleeve. Justine, I don’t know what it is, but you lick your lips like a cat that had just been