At last the Saturday came, and the WEEKLY SAGAMORE arrived.
Mrs. Eversly Bennett was present. She was the Presbyterian
parson's wife, and was working the Fosters for a charity.
Talk now died a sudden death--on the Foster side. Mrs. Bennett
presently discovered that her hosts were not hearing a word she
was saying; so she got up, wondering and indignant, and went away.
The moment she was out of the house, Aleck eagerly tore the wrapper
from the paper, and her eyes and Sally's swept the columns for the
death-notices. Disappointment! Tilbury was not anywhere mentioned.
Aleck was a Christian from the cradle, and duty and the force of
habit required her to go through the motions. She pulled herself
together and said, with a pious two-per-cent. trade joyousness:
"Let us be humbly thankful that he has been spared; and--"
"Damn his treacherous hide, I wish--"
"Sally! For shame!"
"I don't care!" retorted the angry man. "It's the way YOU feel,
and if you weren't so immorally pious you'd be honest and say so."
Aleck said, with wounded dignity:
"I do not see how you can say such unkind and unjust things.
There is no such thing as immoral piety."
Sally felt a pang, but tried to conceal it under a shuffling attempt
to save his case by changing the form of it--as if changing the form
while retaining the juice could deceive the expert he was trying
to placate.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25