Page:Booth Tarkington - Alice Adams.djvu/433

 plained to me about his name; it seems it isn't William, it's just 'Will'; his parents had him christened that way. It's curious." She paused, and then, with an effort to seem casual, which veiled nothing from her daughter: "It's quite curious," she said again. "But it's rather attractive and different, don't you think?"

"Poor mama!" Alice laughed compassionately. "Poor mama!"

"He is, though," Mrs. Adams maintained. "He's very much of a gentleman, unless I'm no judge of appearances; and it'll really be nice to have him in the house."

"No doubt," Alice said, as she opened her door to depart. "I don't suppose we'll mind having any of 'em as much as we thought we would. Good-bye."

But her mother detained her, catching her by the arm. "Alice, you do hate it, don't you!"

"No," the girl said, quickly. "There wasn't anything else to do."

Mrs. Adams became emotional at once: her face cried tragedy, and her voice misfortune. "There might have been something else to do! Oh, Alice, you gave your father bad advice when you upheld him m taking a miserable little ninety-three hun-