Apron-Strings Part 15

"Oh, mother!" Sue came back a little way. "Don't treat me like a child!"

Now Mrs. Milo became all gentleness once more. She put a hand on Sue's arm. "Your mother is the best judge of your actions," she reminded.

"And she wants you to stay."

Sue backed. "No; I'm sorry," she answered. "In all my life I can't remember disobeying you once. But today I must." Again she started.

"My daughter!" Mrs. Milo's voice broke pathetically. "You--you mean you won't respect my wishes?"

Checked by that sign of tears so near, again Sue halted, but without turning. "I want to help her," she urged, a little doggedly.

"But your mother," went on Mrs. Milo, "--my feelings--my love--are you going to trample them under foot?"

"Oh, not that!"

Mrs. Milo fell to weeping. "Oh, what do you care for my peace of mind!" she mourned. "For my heartache!"

It brought Sue to her mother's side. "Why! Why!" She put an arm about the elder woman tenderly.

Mrs. Milo dropped to a chair. "This is the child I bore!" she sobbed.

"I've devoted my whole life to her! And now--oh, if your dear father knew! If he could only see----" Words failed her. She buried her face in her handkerchief.

Sue knelt at her side. "Oh, mother! Mother!" she comforted. "Hush, dear! Hus.h.!.+"

"I'm going to be ill," wept Mrs. Milo. "I know I am! My nerves can't stand it! But it's just as well"--mournfully. "I'm in your way. I can see that. And it's t-t-t-time that I died!" She shook convulsively.

Commands, arguments, appeals, tears--how often Mrs. Milo and her daughter went through the several steps of just such a scene as this.

Exactly that often, Sue capitulated, as she capitulated now, with eyes br.i.m.m.i.n.g.

"Ah, don't say that, mother," she pleaded. "You'll break my heart!

You're my whole life--with Wallace away, why I've got n.o.body else in the whole world!" And looking up, "Wallace, you go."

Instantly Mrs. Milo's weeping quieted.

"Today?" asked her brother, impatiently.

"Yes, now! Right away!" Sue got to her feet.

"Oh, Sue, there's no rus.h.!.+"

Mrs. Milo, suddenly dry-eyed, came to her son's rescue. "And why should Wallace go?" she asked. "Mr. Farvel is the one."

"No! No!" he cried, scowling at her. "I won't have Alan worried."

"Mm!" commented Mrs. Milo, ruffled at having her good offices so little appreciated. "You're very considerate."

"I understand the matter better than anyone else," he explained, trying to speak more politely. "Alan can't even bear to talk about it.

So--I'll go."

Sue turned to Balcome. "And you go with him," she suggested.

"But why?"--again it was a nervous, frightened protest.

Sue nodded toward Hattie, standing so slim and still beside her father.

"So my little sister will feel all right about it," she explained.

"Because nothing, Wallace, must worry her. It's her happiness we want to think of, isn't it?--dear Hattie's."

"Oh, yes! Yes!"

"The address--I'll write it down." She bent over the desk.

Wallace went to Hattie. "Good-by," he said, tremulously. "I'll be right back." He leaned to kiss her, but she turned her face away. His lips brushed only her cheek.

Sue thrust the address into his hand. "Here. And, oh, Wallace, be very kind to her!"

"Of course. Yes. I'll do what I can." But he seemed scarcely to know what he was saying. He fingered the card Sue had given him, and watched Hattie.

Urging him toward the vestibule, Sue glanced down at her bridesmaid's dress, then searchingly about the room--for a hat, a wrap. "And bring them together--won't you?" she went on, taking Balcome's arm. At the door, she crowded in front of him.

"Susan," challenged her mother.

"Yes, mother,"--coming short, with a whimsically comical look that acknowledged discovery and defeat.

"They can find their way out. Come back."

Sue came. "But I could go with them, and not see Miss Crosby." Once more that note of childlike pleading. "I could just wait near by."

"Wait here, Susan.--Oh, I realize that you could be there and back before I'd know it."

Sue laughed. "Oh, she's a smart little mother!" she said fondly.

"Yes, she is!"

"She knows your tricks," retorted Mrs. Milo, wisely. "You'd even trapse out in that get-up.--Please don't fidget while I'm talking."

Seeing that it was impossible for her to get away, Sue sat down resignedly. "Well, as Ikey says," she observed, "'sometimes t'ings go awful fine, und sometimes she don't.'"

Now, Farvel came breezing in. "I've found a minister, Miss Milo," he announced. Then realizing that something untoward had happened, "Why,--where's Wallace?"

"He has followed Miss Crosby," answered Mrs. Milo, speaking the name with exaggerated distinctness.

"Miss Crosby?" Farvel was puzzled.

"Miss--_Clare_--Crosby."

He turned to Sue, and she rose and came to him--smiling, and with a certain confidential air that was calculated either to rescue him from a catechism or to result in her own banishment from the room. "Do you know that you haven't dictated this morning's letters?" she asked. And touching him on the arm, "Shan't we go into the library now?"

"Susan," purred Mrs. Milo.

"Yes, mother." But Sue, halting beside Farvel, continued to talk to him animatedly, in an undertone.