Poverty made it seem impossible, but
now, if you will be just a little patient with them all, I can
arrange--"
"I was going to arrange all that my own self, and now just see what you
have done to me and a whole lot of other women, besides making me
miserable all summer," and crowded so close under his chin that he
couldn't see my face, I told him all about the tinder-box Jane had
loaded and then set me on the lid to see that it exploded.
I had just worked myself up to the point of how my incendiary mission
was about to touch off all the other love affairs in town, when he began
to shake so with disrespectful laughter that I felt that my dignity was
about to demand that I withdraw coldly from his arms, where I had just
got so warm and comfortable and at home; but with the first slight
intimation of my intention, which was conveyed by a very feeble indeed
loosening of my arms from around his Henry Clay collar, he held me
firmly against him and controlled his unseemly mirth, only I could still
feel it convulsing his left lung,--though as I had no business being
near enough to notice it, I felt it only fair not to.
"Please don't worry about those other Five dear women," he begged, in
the nicest and most considerate voice possible so that I tightened my
arms again as I listened. "If Miss Mathers doesn't feel justified in
giving up the dowries by your--your failure to prove the proposition, we
can just invite them all down here and in Glendale and Bolivar and
Hillsboro and Providence, to say nothing of the countryside, we can
plant them all cozily.
Pages:
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189