Page:Stella Dallas, a novel (IA stelladallasnove00prou).pdf/67

Rh "We'll try it," said Con, "and I'll teach you tennis."

He wouldn't acknowledge that he liked Laurel. None of the boys went as far as that. "But she isn't silly, and she isn't afraid of things!" he told his mother.

"They get along together beautifully, Stephen," said Helen Morrison to Laurel's father the night he came to take Laurel away.

It was after dinner. They were sitting in the garden terrace just outside the big room, where the portrait hung. Through the open windows, uncurtained towards the terrace, they could see Laurel seated with the two older of the boys at a table, busy over some sort of game with cards, with Michael stretched out comfortably at their feet.

"I've enjoyed every moment of her," Helen went on, gazing fondly at the group inside the room. "Only," and there was a sudden change in her voice, "it's brought home to me afresh what I've missed—all these years. Oh, we've had such fun together!" she broke off gaily. "Girls' sort of fun," she laughed; "doing each other's hair, for instance—trying on each other's hats—that sort of thing. Boys—men, couldn't understand. And her questions! Don't you love little girls' blunt questions? Darling things, I think, like awkward little colts and calves—oh, Laurel's a dear child, Stephen. I've kept pretending she was mine," she exclaimed lightly.

"Oh, Helen! if she only were!"

There wasn't a trace of lightness in Stephen's exclamation.