Page:The Lark - E Nesbit, 1922.djvu/273

274 word. I should throw him a kind word. It don't do to let 'em get too down-hearted," said Gladys. "If they gets too miserable they makes away with themselves sometimes."

"Have any of your sweethearts committed suicide, Gladys?" Lucilla could not help asking.

"I wish you wouldn't use that low word, miss. No, none of the gentlemen I've walked out with ain't gone so far as that. When I said make away with themselves, I meant making away to some other young lady not worth his notice most likely. All right, miss, I'm going. . . ."

She went, and almost at once Miss Antrobus darkened the door.

"Good morning," she said, not smiling. "Can I have ten shillings' worth of flowers for the hospital? Chrysanthemums, I think. Not any white ones, please."

"Have you seen Jane this morning?" Lucilla asked.

"No, I have been out since seven, on business."

Then Lucilla perceived that the gods did not intend this particular piece of work to be for Jane's doing.

"Look here," she said, fumbling with the flowers, "I want to talk to you."

"Yes?" said Miss Antrobus.

"About the aunt," said Lucilla, teasing the wet blossoms.

"Yes? Was there some mistake in the address you gave me last night?"

"No," said Lucilla, "there isn't any mistake; there isn't any address; there isn't any aunt. It was all a silly trick. I was the aunt, dressed up. Jane was looking for you to tell you, but"

Here, prompt as to a cue, Jane came pattering down the very stairs by which she had first tumbled into the garden room.

"I say, Luce, I can't find her anywhere" she began. "Oh!" She ended on a different note and stopped short, face to face with Miss Antrobus.

"I was just telling Miss Antrobus—shut the door, Jane,"