Page:Carroll Rankin--Dandelion Cottage.djvu/246

 222  that Jean, who seldom cried and whose puffed, scarlet eyelids contrasted oddly and rather pathetically with her colorless cheeks, presently sat up to remonstrate.

"Mabel!" she said, slipping an arm about the chief mourner, "do you want the Milligans to hear you? We're on their side of the house, you know."

Jean couldn't have used a better argument. Mabel stopped short in the middle of one of her very best howls, sat up and shook her head vigorously.

"Well, I just guess I don't," said she. "I'd die first."

"I thought so," said Jean, with just a faint glimmer of a smile. "We mustn't let those people guess how awfully we care. Go bathe your eyes, Mabel—there must be a little warm water in the tea kettle."

Then the comforter turned to Bettie, and made the appeal that was most likely to reach that always-ready-to-help young person.