The Third Violet

Excerpt: ...look at her. "Oh, Mr. Hawker," cried the younger Worcester girl, suddenly emerging from the cloud of argument which Hollanden and Oglethorpe kept in the air, "won't it be sad to lose Grace? Indeed, I don't know what we shall do. Sha'n't we miss her dreadfully?" "Yes," said Hawker, "we shall of course miss her dreadfully." "Yes, won't it be frightful?" said the elder Worcester girl. "I can't imagine what we will do without her. And Hollie is only going to spend ten more days. Oh, dear! mamma, I believe, will insist on staying the entire summer. It was papa's orders, you know, and I really think she is going to obey them. He said he wanted her to have one Pg 102 period of rest at any rate. She is such a busy woman in town, you know." "Here," said Hollanden, wheeling to them suddenly, "you all look as if you were badgering Hawker, and he looks badgered. What are you saying to him?" "Why," answered the younger Worcester girl, "we were only saying to him how lonely it would be without Grace." "Oh!" said Hollanden. As the evening grew old, the mother of the Worcester girls joined the group. This was a sign that the girls were not to long delay the vanishing time. She sat almost upon the edge of her chair, as if she expected to be called upon at any moment to arise and bow "Good-night," and she repaid Hollanden's eloquent attention with the placid and absent-minded smiles of the chaperon who waits. Once the younger Worcester girl shrugged her shoulders and turned to say, "Mamma, you make me nervous!" Her mother merely smiled in a still more placid and absent-minded manner. Oglethorpe arose to drag his chair nearer to the railing, and when he stood the Worces Pg 103 ter mother moved and looked around expectantly, but Oglethorpe took seat again. Hawker kept an anxious eye upon her. Presently Miss Fanhall arose. "Why, you are not going in already, are you?" said Hawker and Hollanden and Oglethorpe. The Worcester mother moved toward the door followed by her...