Page:Hollyhock house; a story for girls (IA hollyhockhousest00tagg).pdf/333

Rh meant to take it. I didn’t wait to find out which; either way my safety laid in flight, an’ I flew.”

In spite of themselves the girls burst out laughing at this.

“Don’t you laugh, girls,” said Joel, with deeper seriousness. “There’s been many a unfort’nate man married before this because he hadn’t the ready money, nor yet the courage to go to law to prove he had no notion of takin’ a woman who ran him down like a hunted deer. It’s a dreadful thing when a woman that’s at all set picks out some man to marry him! Matrimony is seriouser, anyway, than girls like you thinks, an’ I believe it’s the dooty of older folks to try to make the younger generation sense that.”

Mrs. Garden could never accommodate herself to the American freedom of speech on the part of those whom she employed. “Such awfully bad manners!” she said in her most English accent, when her disapproval was not more severe. Now she turned toward the house. “Anne must have called us, my dears,” she said. “Very well, Bell; we will try to find a matron for our Day Nursery.”

At the house Anne met them. “I called,