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Presently she who has been referred to as Dodo's auntie, Miss Camille Bonnivel, entered and, after one swift look at the guest, who stood smilingly awaiting the outbreak of her astonishment, threw up both hands and flew across the room. "Joyce!" she cried, "Joyce Lavillotte! So the proud heiress of a hundred acres mostly marsh-land, but no matter! has condescended to our low estate.
Bonnivel might like some refreshments, and I told Mr. Driscoll, if he would take his wife and sister I would come for you two ladies. But he said they had gone home with the baby." "Have they? And what has become of Mrs. Phelps?" asked Joyce, feeling somewhat forsaken by her clan. "She went in with the doctor some time ago. I rather think she has left, too. She had a headache, or something."
But she and Madame Bonnivel, together, instructed the intelligent architects employed, even down to the minute contrivances for saving work and time, that were introduced into the cottages. Even Gus Peters had never fathomed the mystery of his own surprising good fortune.
The Bonnivels were at dinner, one evening, somewhat before the events related in the past few pages, and were discussing in lively tones a long letter which had come from Leon that day Leon Bonnivel, the absent son and brother who was in a ship of war off the South Atlantic coast. He had just been advanced to a first lieutenancy, and the family were jubilant in consequence.
Feeling like a child who has had its gift of sweeties flung back into its face she turned slowly to retrace her steps towards Madame Bonnivel, and even in the short circuit of the crowded rooms she more than once caught words of criticism and unfriendly comment.
For the Bonnivels had known hard times in their southern home, when Dorette and Leon were little, and his appointment to the Naval school had been the first lightening of their fortunes, Dorette's marriage to an honest young fellow in a good situation the second. That Madame Bonnivel and Camille were never allowed to feel their dependence upon Mr. and Mrs.
"I was going to say, it seems to me there's something more than business in it all, ma mère." Madame Bonnivel looked up quickly. "Are you justified in saying that, daughter?" "I don't know. I only spoke of the way in which it strikes me. There now! He's coming out, and Joyce with him. She has on her new jacket and her best walking hat. I do verily believe they are going into the city.
"Oh, I've heard you plotting and planning. Mother Bonnivel, are you going to turn us Driscolls out of doors, now you've come into your palace?" "Oh dear, no palace! Just a comfortable home with room enough to swing all Dodo's kittens in," laughed Joyce, to keep back the tears, for the dear mother's joy upset her.
Obstinately declaring that she should be wretched in a home where everything "smelled of its newness," she had coaxed and cajoled her friends until, almost without their realizing it, there had been such a division of the old Bonnivel effects and the new Lavillotte purchases that both houses presented a pretty equal mingling of the ancient and modern.
"Oh, you think I have mistaken the occasion? I see!" She spoke in a tone Camille knew of old which, though seldom used towards a Bonnivel, could hold almost any one in check. So the girl went on rapidly, determined to have her say out, "I won't beat about the bush any more. I believe you are perfectly happy with George Dalton, and don't want anybody else. Now, aren't you? Own up!"
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