She might have found a much worse hobby to ride. Getting up early and starting for the Long Island links, or for Westchester, before her sisters had had their breakfast, was not doing Belle a bit of harm. Only, she was getting in with a somewhat “sporty” class of girls and women older than herself, and the bloom of youth had been quite rubbed off.
Indeed, these three girls were about as fresh as is a dried prune. They had jumped from childhood into full-blown womanhood (or thought they had), thereby missing the very best and sweetest part of their girls’ life.
They had come in from their various activities of the day when Helen’s telegram arrived. Naturally they ran with it to their father’s “den” – a gorgeously upholstered yet small library on the ground floor, at the back.
“What is it now, girls?” demanded Mr. Starkweather, looking up in some dismay at this general onslaught. “I don’t want you to suggest any further expenditures this month. I have paid all the bills I possibly can pay. We must retrench – we must retrench.”
“Oh, Pa!” said Flossie, saucily, “you’re always saying that. I believe you say ‘We must retrench!’ in your sleep.”
“And small wonder if I do,” he grumbled. “I have lost some money; the stock market is very dull. And nobody is buying real estate. I – I am quite at my wits’ ends, I assure you, girls.”
“Dear me! and another mouth to feed!” laughed Hortense, tossing her head. “That will be excuse enough for telling her to go to a hotel when she arrives.”
“Probably the poor thing won’t have the price of a room,” observed Belle, looking again at the telegram.
“What is that in your hand, child?” demanded Mr. Starkweather, suddenly seeing the yellow slip of paper.
“A dispatch, Pa,” said Flossie, snatching it out of Belle’s hand.
“A telegram?”
“And you’d never guess from whom,” cried the youngest girl.
“I – I – Let me see it,” said her father, with some abruptness. “No bad news, I hope?”
“Well, I don’t call it good news,” said the oldest girl, with a sniff.
Mr. Starkweather read it aloud:
“Coming on Transcontinental. Arrive Grand
Central Terminal 9 P.M. the third.
“Now! What do you think of that, Pa?” demanded Flossie.
“‘Helen Morrell,’” repeated Mr. Starkweather, and a person more observant than any of his daughters might have seen that his lips had grown suddenly gray. He dropped into his chair rather heavily. “Your cousin, girls.”
“Fol-de-rol!” exclaimed Belle. “I don’t see why she should claim relationship.”
“Send her to a hotel, Pa,” said Flossie.
“I’m sure I do not wish to be bothered by a common ranch girl. Why! she was born and brought up out in the wilds; wasn’t she?” demanded Hortense.
“Her father and mother went West before this girl was born – yes,” murmured Mr. Starkweather.
He was strangely agitated by the message. But the girls did not notice this. They were not likely to notice anything but their own disturbance over the coming of “that ranch girl.”
“Why, Pa, we can’t have her here!” cried Belle.
“Of course we can’t, Pa,” agreed Hortense.
“I’m sure I don’t want the common little thing around,” added Flossie, who, as has been said, was quite two years Helen’s junior.
“We couldn’t introduce her to our friends,” declared Belle.
“What a fright she’ll be!” wailed Hortense.
“She’ll wear a sombrero and a split riding skirt, I suppose,” scoffed Flossie, who madly desired a slit skirt, herself.
“Of course she’ll be a perfect dowdy,” Belle observed.
“And be loud and wear heavy boots, and stamp through the house,” sighed Hortense. “We just can’t have her, Pa.”
“Why, I wouldn’t let any of the girls of our set see her for the world,” cried Flossie.
Their father finally spoke. He had recovered from his secret emotion, but he was still mopping the perspiration from his bald brow.
“I don’t really see how I can prevent her coming,” he said, rather weakly.
“What nonsense, Pa!”
“Of course you can!”
“Telegraph her not to come.”
“But she is already aboard the train,” objected Mr. Starkweather, gloomily.
“Then, I tell you,” snapped Flossie, who was the most unkind of the girls. “Don’t telegraph her at all. Don’t answer her message. Don’t send to the station to meet her. Maybe she won’t be too dense to take that hint.”
“Pooh! these wild and woolly Western girls!” grumbled Hortense. “I don’t believe she’ll know enough to stay away.”
“We can try it,” persisted Flossie.
“She ought to realize that we’re not dying to see her when we don’t come to the train,” said Belle.
“I – don’t – know,” mused their father.
“Now, Pa!” cried Flossie. “You know very well you don’t want that girl here.”
“No,” he admitted. “But – Ahem! – we have certain duties – ”
“Bother duties!” said Hortense.
“Ahem! She is your mother’s sister’s child,” spoke Mr. Starkweather, heavily. “She is a young and unprotected female – ”
“Seems to me,” said Belle, crossly, “the relationship is far enough removed for us to ignore it. Mother’s sister, Aunt Mary, is dead.”
“True – true. Ahem!” said her father.
“And isn’t it true that this man, Morrell, whom she married, left New York under a cloud?”
“O – oh!” cried Hortense. “So he did.”
“What did he do?” Flossie asked, bluntly.
“Embezzled; didn’t he, Pa?” asked Belle.
“That’s enough!” cried Flossie, tossing her head. “We certainly don’t want a convict’s daughter in the house.”
“Hush, Flossie!” said her father, with sudden sternness. “Prince Morrell was never a convict.”
“No,” sneered Hortense. “He ran away. He didn’t get that far.”
“Ahem! Daughters, we have no right to talk in this way – even in fun – ”
“Well, I don’t care,” cried Belle, impatiently. “Whether she’s a criminal’s child or not; I don’t want her. None of us wants her. Why, then, should we have her?”
“But where will she go?” demanded Mr. Starkweather, almost desperately.
“What do we care?” cried Flossie, callously. “She can be sent back; can’t she?”
“I tell you what it is,” said Belle, getting up and speaking with determination. “We don’t want Helen Morrell here. We will not meet her at the train. We will not send any reply to this message from her. And if she has the effrontery to come here to the house after our ignoring her in this way, we’ll send her back where she came