Page:Mistress Madcap Surrenders (1926).pdf/57

 assuringly at her husband, whose gaze had anxiously followed her own. Mehitable, all unconscious of the little by-play in which she had had the leading rôle, looked up to repeat: "Think ye they e'er will be married, Ma?"

"Of course," answered Mistress Condit serenely. "But Nancy has been loath to leave her invalid mother, who needs her at home—'tis not as though there were a big family there, ye know—and then the war, with all its anxieties! Indeed, 'twould be a rash couple who would set up housekeeping wi' such an uncertain future as the war must produce!"

There was a little silence, then the mother went on: "I have arranged in my mind as to your new gowns, girls."

"How, Mother?" exclaimed Mehitable, vastly excited, though her flying fingers did not pause in their work.

"By using my blue silk gown and the creamcolored one, too. Combined, they ought to make up into two pretty party gowns."

"Oh, Mother!" Charity twisted herself upon the stool to gaze wide-eyed up into her mother's face. Her voice trembled. "Oh, Mother, not—not—your bride's 'walking-out gowns'!"

"Bye, Charity." From Mistress Condit's placid face, no one but her hearers could have guessed at the involuntary regret she felt and the very real