Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/70

56 come. The objection, I must tell you, has been quite removed."

At this it was still more startling to hear Mrs. Wix speak out with great firmness. "I don't think, if you'll allow me to say so, that there's any arrangement by which the objection can be 'removed.' What has brought me here to-day is that I've a message for Maisie from dear Mrs. Farange."

The child's heart gave a great thump. "Oh, mamma's come back?"

"Not yet, sweet love, but she's coming," said Mrs. Wix; "and she has—most thoughtfully, you know—sent me on to prepare you."

"To prepare her for what, pray?" asked Miss Overmore, whose primitive mildness had evidently, with this news, taken a turn for the worse. Mrs. Wix quietly applied her straighteners to Miss Overmore' s florid loveliness. "Well, miss, for a very important communication."

"Can't dear Mrs. Farange, as you so oddly call her, make her communications directly? Can't she take the trouble to write to her only daughter?" the younger lady demanded. "Maisie herself will tell you that it's months and months since she has had so much as a word from her."