She had skimmed through the paper hurriedly; now a headline caught her
eye. _Failure of Union Bank_—wasn’t that the bank of which Courtleigh
Fleming had been president? She settled down to read the article but it
was disappointingly brief. The Union Bank had closed its doors; the
cashier, a young man named Bailey, was apparently under suspicion; the
article mentioned Courtleigh Fleming’s recent and tragic death in the
best vein of newspaperese. She laid down the paper and
thought—_Bailey—Bailey_—she seemed to have a vague recollection of
hearing about a young man named Bailey who worked in a bank—but she
could not remember where or by whom his name had been mentioned.
Well—it didn’t matter. She had other things to think about. She must
ring for Lizzie—get up and dress. The bright morning sun, streaming in
through the long window, made lying in bed an old woman’s luxury and
she refused to be an old woman.
_Though the worst old woman I ever knew was a man!_ she thought with a
satiric twinkle. She was glad Sally’s daughter—young Dale Ogden—was
here in the house with her. The companionship of Dale’s bright youth
would keep her from getting old-womanish if anything could.
She smiled, thinking of Dale. Dale was a nice child—her favorite niece.
Sally didn’t understand her, of course—but Sally wouldn’t. Sally read
magazine articles on the younger generation and its wild ways. _Sally
doesn’t remember when she was a younger generation herself_, thought
Miss Cornelia. _But I do—and if we didn’t have automobiles, we had
buggies—and youth doesn’t change its ways just because it has cut its
hair._ Before Mr. and Mrs. Ogden left for Europe, Sally had talked to
her sister Cornelia ... long and weightily, on the problem of Dale.
_Problem of Dale, indeed!_ thought Miss Cornelia scornfully. _Dale’s
the nicest thing I’ve seen in some time. She’d be ten times happier if
Sally wasn’t always trying to marry her off to some young snip with
more of what fools call ‘eligibility’ than brains! But there, Cornelia
Van Gorder—Sally’s given you your innings by rampaging off to Europe
and leaving Dale with you all summer and you’ve a lot less sense than I
flatter myself you have, if you can’t give your favorite niece a happy
vacation from all her immediate family—and maybe find her someone
who’ll make her happy for good and all in the bargain._ Miss Cornelia
was an incorrigible matchmaker.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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