Page:Ballinger Price--The Happy Venture.djvu/212

192 see we're not at Westover Street just now. We've been staying in the country for a while, at the jolliest old place, and, er—they want you to come up there for a while, too."

Ken had been planning different ways of telling his mother of the passing of the Westover Street house, all the way down from Asquam. He could not, now, remember a single word of all those carefully thought out methods of approach.

"I don't think I quite understand," Mrs. Sturgis said. "Are you staying with friends? I didn't know we knew any one in the country."

They were in the middle of the street, and Ken chose to focus his attention on the traffic.

"Let's get to the lunch place," he said. "It's quieter there, to talk."

"Still wearing that old suit, dear?" Mrs. Sturgis said, touching Ken's sleeve as he hung up his overcoat in the restaurant.

"Er—this is my good suit," Ken murmured. "That is, it's the only suit I have—that is—"

"See here," said Mrs. Sturgis, whose perceptions were beginning to quicken as she faced a member of her family again with the barrier of