"Mr. Brower tells her," she said, with a
disdainful brevity.
Her face was indistinct in the twilight, but if its expression
corresponded with the inflection of her voice, her nostrils were inflated
and her lips were curled in disparagement. To Jane, in her dark corner of
the carriage, this was patent enough. Indeed, it was sufficiently obvious
to all that Jane's years availed little to save her from the searching
criticism of her younger sister, and that Miss Rosamund Marshall bestowed
but slight esteem--or, at least, but slight approval--upon Mr. Theodore
Brower.
"Supposing he _does_ tell me!" called Jane, absurdly allowing herself to
be put on the defensive. "It's a mighty good thing, I take it. If there's
anybody else in the family but me who knows or cares anything about poor
pa's business, I should like to be told who it is!"
"That will do, Jane," sounded her mother's voice in cold correction.
"There's no need for you to talk so. Your father has run his own business
now for thirty-five years, with every year better than the year before,
and I imagine he knows how to look out for himself. Thank goodness, we
are on a respectable pavement once more."
Mabel, turning a sudden corner, had given them a quick transition from
the rattle and jar of granite to the gentle palpitation that is possible
on well-packed macadam. The carriage passed in review a series of
towering and glittering hotels, told off a score or more of residences of
the elder day, and presently drew up before the gate of an antiquated
homestead in the neighborhood of the Panoramas.
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