Page:Bobbie, General Manager (1913).djvu/37

Rh there be time for me to run over to the postoffice with some letters before lunch?"

I stalked into the sitting-room. She was sitting at the desk in her graceful easy way, with a beautiful French hand-embroidered lingerie waist on, that I'd be glad to own for very best. There were gold beads about her neck, and her hair, even in the morning, was soft and fluffy and wavy. She had her feet crossed and I took in the silk stockings and the low dull-leather pumps.

I had a sudden desire to tear down all her beautiful appearance of ease and grace.

"We don't have lunch at noon," I said bluntly. "We have dinner, just dinner. We've always had dinner."

"Yes, I know," she began in her persistently pleasant way; "people do very often, in New England."

I couldn't bear her unruffled composure.

"Oh," I said, bound to shock her, "it isn't because we're New England. It's because we're plain, plain people. The rich families in New England as well as anywhere, have dinner at night. But we," I said, glorying in every word, "are not one of the rich families. We have doughnuts for breakfast, baked beans and brown bread Saturday nights, and Saturday noons a boiled dinner. We love pie. We all just love it. Father came from a farm in Vermont. He didn't have any money at all when he started in. You see we're common people. And so's Tom. Tom comes from just a common, common, common family," I said, loving to repeat the word.

She was sitting with her arm thrown carelessly over the back of the chair, and her gaze way out of