Page:Stella Dallas, a novel (IA stelladallasnove00prou).pdf/266

256 come out all right in the end. But of course she couldn't. Mum was the word.

"It's simply horrid for you here, honey."

Laurel gave a start, as if she had been a thousand miles away.

"Oh, no, it isn't," she assured Stella lightly. "Really, I like it. Oh, we'll have a good time. See if we don't. There's Revere, and Nantasket, and Norumbega."

"Was it awful lonesome without me?"

"No more awful for me than for you when I'm away, I guess."

"What did you do?"

"Oh, I sat out here."

"Gracious! Seventeen, summer, a moon, and alone, out here."

"About nine o'clock the bell rang. It was that Mr. Munn."

"Oh, Ed! Really?"

"He said he saw the light and thought it was probably you who were here, alone, while I was off visiting somewhere. When he discovered it was I, he said please to excuse him, and went away."

"That sounds real polite of Ed."

"No, it wasn't. He didn't have any right to ring the bell for you—a man like that. He knows we don't want him. We've shown him. Oh, I hate that man, mother."

"I know you do. You've told me so enough times. Funny. You're your father right over again, Lollie."

"Did father ever see Ed Munn?"

"Mercy, yes!"