Families -- Fiction; Girls -- Conduct of life -- Fiction; Young women -- Conduct of life -- Fiction
"I will," Sally replied with a cheerful little nod. "Good-bye." And
she stepped out easily, leaving Patty, Fox, and her mother. This was
an arrangement little to Patty's liking. Doctor Sanderson was in the
seat with Mrs. Ladue. To be sure, he might have changed with Patty
when Sally got out, but Mrs. Ladue would not have him inconvenienced
to that extent. She noted that his eyes followed Sally as she ran and
slid and ran again. Mr. Hazen came forward to meet her and she slipped
her hand within his arm, and she turned to wave her muff to them. Then
Sally and Uncle John walked slowly back, toward the head of the
course.
Fox turned to Mrs. Ladue and they smiled at each other. "I guess," Fox
remarked, "that she is not changed, after all; except," he added as an
afterthought, "that she is more generally cheerful than she used to
be, which is a change to be thankful for."
Sally and Uncle John took Dick Torrington home to dinner; and
Henrietta very nearly monopolized his attention, as might have been
expected. It was late, as the habits of the Hazens went, when they
went up to bed, but Henrietta would have Sally come in for a few
minutes. She had _so_ many things to say. No, they wouldn't wait. She
would have forgotten them by the next day. And Sally laughed and went
with Henrietta.
Henrietta's few minutes had lengthened to half an hour and she had not
said half the things she had meant to say. She had told Sally how Mr.
Spencer--Eugene Spencer, you know--had overtaken them at the head of
the course and had accosted Mr. Torrington, challenging him to race.
"Mr. Spencer," continued Henrietta, with a demure glance at Sally,
"seemed out of sorts and distinctly cross. I'm sure I don't know why.
Do you, Sally?"
Sally looked annoyed. "He is very apt to be, I think," she remarked
briefly. "What did Dick do? He said he was not going to race."
"Yes, that's what he told Mr. Spencer, and Mr. Spencer said, in a
disagreeable kind of way, 'You promised Sally, I suppose.' And
Dick--Mr. Torrington--smiled and his eyes wrinkled. I think he was
laughing at Mr. Spencer--at the pet he was in. Don't you, Sally?"
Sally nodded. She thought it very likely.
"And Dick--I must ask Mr. Torrington's pardon, but I hear him spoken
of as Dick so often that I forget--Mr. Torrington told him, in his
slow, quiet way, that he hadn't exactly promised you; that, in fact,
he had warned you that his horse was spirited and somewhat fractious
and he might not be able to hold him. He had warned somebody, anyway,
and he thought it was you. It wasn't you, at all, Sally. It was I, but
I didn't enlighten him."
"I knew, very well, that he would," Sally observed. "So he raced with
Jane?"
"With Mr. Spencer," Henrietta corrected. "Do you call him Jane? How
funny! And we beat him and he went off in a shocking temper, for Dick
laughed at him, but very gently."
"I'm not sure that would not be all the harder for Jane. I suppose you
were glad to beat him."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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