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She had no desire that any one of these affairs should exclude the other two. She wished nothing to be consummated. As for love, she never let slip an occasion to shock Aunt Wess' by declaring: "I love nobody. I shall never marry." But this was not so. Laura never manoeuvered with her lovers, nor intrigued to keep from any one of them knowledge of her companionship with the other two.
"Well, why not go right up to him and introduce ourself, or recall yourself to him?" she hazarded. "I wouldn't for worlds." "Couldn't she, Aunt Wess'?" appealed Laura. "Wouldn't it be all right?" But Mrs. Wessels, ignoring forms and customs, was helpless. Again she withdrew from any responsibility in the matter. "I don't know anything about it," she answered.
"Oh, I didn't like him at all," said Aunt Wess'. "He stamped around so." But the audience itself had interested her, and the decollete gowns had been particularly impressing. "I never saw such dressing in all my life," she declared. "And that woman in the box next ours. Well! did you notice that!" She raised her eyebrows and set her lips together. "Well, I don't want to say anything."
Aunt Wess' fixed her with a distressful gaze. She sniffed once or twice, and then began fumbling in her reticule for her handkerchief. "If only her dear father were here," she whispered huskily. "And to think that's the same little girl I used to rap on the head with my thimble for annoying the cat! Oh, if Jonas could be here this day."
"I don't see why he don't marry the young lady and be done with it," commented Aunt Wess'. The act drew to its close. The prima donna went through her "great scene," wherein her voice climbed to C in alt, holding the note so long that Aunt Wess' became uneasy. As she finished, the house rocked with applause, and the soprano, who had gone out supported by her confidante, was recalled three times.
But Aunt Wess' was not yet satisfied. "You may see, Laura," she remarked, "how you are going to heat all that house with that one furnace, but I declare I don't." Their car, or rather their train of cars, coupled together in threes, in Chicago style, came, and Landry escorted them down town.
At the end the baritone abruptly drew his sword, and the prima donna fell to her knees, chanting: "Io tremo, ahime!" "And now he's mad again," whispered Aunt Wess', consulting her libretto, all at sea once more. "I can't understand. She says the opera book says she says, 'I tremble. I don't see why." Now they're going to have it out."
"Landry Court does not have to work to-day he told me why, but I've forgotten and he said he was coming up to help," observed Laura, and at once Aunt Wess' smiled. Landry Court was openly and strenuously in love with Laura, and no one of the new household ignored the fact. Aunt Wess' chose to consider the affair as ridiculous, and whenever the subject was mentioned spoke of Landry as "that boy."
Oh, it's all right," he declared. "You just trust me." Of course Aunt Wess' would have to come." "Of course," he said. "I wouldn't think of asking you unless she could come." A little later the two sisters, Mrs.
For two years, in the solidly built colonial dwelling, with its low ceilings and ample fireplaces, where once the minute-men had swung their kettles, Laura, alone, thought it all over. Mother and father were dead; even the Boston aunt was dead. Of all her relations, Aunt Wess' alone remained. The Cresslers were the dearest friends of the orphan girls.
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