Families -- Fiction; Girls -- Conduct of life -- Fiction; Young women -- Conduct of life -- Fiction
"Her mind giving way!" echoed Mrs. Upjohn, surprised out of her usual
caution. "Oh, I guess not. Who told you that, Letty?"
"Yes, indeed," said Miss Lambkin with a toss of her head. "Didn't you
know that she's been sent out to Doctor Sanderson's Home for
Incurables? Dick sent her out there nearly a month ago. She's as
comfortable there as could be expected. I have it on the best of
authority--some one connected with the institution," she added with a
nod and a knowing look.
Mrs. Upjohn laughed again. "I can't believe it, Letty. You must have
been misinformed. In the first place, Doctor Sanderson's place isn't a
home for incurables."
"I know he doesn't call it that. To tell the truth, I can't find out
just what he does call it."
"Can't your best of authority tell you that, too?" asked Mrs. Upjohn
slyly.
"Now, Alicia," said Miss Lambkin with asperity, "you needn't go to
calling in question my authority. It was one of the nurses, if you
must know."
"Doctor Sanderson wouldn't thank her for talking so freely," remarked
Mrs. Upjohn. "I should really like to know what he would say about
Patty. I understood that she had simply gone there to board."
"I suppose she can call it that, but I don't believe that Doctor
Sanderson is running a boarding-house or a hotel either. I always
thought that she was bound for the asylum. And, another thing, I had
it from the same authority that Meriwether Beatty goes to see her
regularly once or twice a week, and he's real kind, too. I leave it to
you whether that isn't a sign that he thinks her mind is growing
feeble. He always used to say the most brutal things."
"I should say it was rather a sign that Doctor Beatty was losing his
mind than that Patty was losing hers," rejoined Mrs. Upjohn.
"Well," said Letty with an air of finality, "you just wait and see if
I'm not right."
"I will," said Mrs. Upjohn.
Miss Lambkin glanced at her smiling face and thought it best to change
the subject.
"Dick Torrington," she observed, "is going to be married to that
Henrietta girl. But I suppose you know."
"Yes," said Mrs. Upjohn.
"I understood," Miss Lambkin resumed, "that the wedding was to be the
last of June."
"The twenty-eighth," said Mrs. Upjohn.
"Oh," rejoined Miss Lambkin, somewhat taken aback by Mrs. Upjohn's
ready replies. "And I understood that Henrietta was coming on here to
visit right away."
"She came last night," said Mrs. Upjohn.
"To visit with Sally, I suppose?" Letty was consumed with curiosity as
to the source of Mrs. Upjohn's accurate information. She always liked
to be the source herself.
"She is the guest of Mrs. Torrington," said Mrs. Upjohn, raising her
eyes at last.
"Dear me, Alicia," Letty exclaimed impatiently, "how you do snap a
person up! I suppose that was why Dick was grinning so like a monkey
when I saw him yesterday afternoon."
"Because I snap a person up?"
"Because Henrietta was coming. He seemed to be on his way to the
station."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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