Miss Lulu Bett | Page 5

positively, "they were. Papa, see my favour."
She showed him a sugar dove, and he clucked at it.
Ina glanced at them fondly, her face assuming its loveliest light. She
was often ridiculous, but always she was the happy wife and mother,
and her rôle reduced her individual absurdities at least to its own.
The door to the bedroom now opened and Mrs. Bett appeared.
"Well, mother!" cried Herbert, the "well" curving like an arm, the
"mother" descending like a brisk slap. "Hungry _now?_"
Mrs. Bett was hungry now. She had emerged intending to pass through
the room without speaking and find food in the pantry. By obscure
processes her son-in-law's tone inhibited all this.
"No," she said. "I'm not hungry."
Now that she was there, she seemed uncertain what to do. She looked
from one to another a bit hopelessly, somehow foiled in her dignity.
She brushed at her skirt, the veins of her long, wrinkled hands catching
an intenser blue from the dark cloth. She put her hair behind her ears.

"We put a potato in the oven for you," said Ina. She had never learned
quite how to treat these periodic refusals of her mother to eat, but she
never had ceased to resent them.
"No, thank you," said Mrs. Bett. Evidently she rather enjoyed the
situation, creating for herself a spot-light much in the manner of
Monona.
"Mother," said Lulu, "let me make you some toast and tea."
Mrs. Bett turned her gentle, bloodless face toward her daughter, and her
eyes warmed.
"After a little, maybe," she said. "I think I'll run over to see Grandma
Gates now," she added, and went toward the door.
"Tell her," cried Dwight, "tell her she's my best girl."
Grandma Gates was a rheumatic cripple who lived next door, and
whenever the Deacons or Mrs. Bett were angry or hurt or wished to
escape the house for some reason, they stalked over to Grandma
Gates--in lieu of, say, slamming a door. These visits radiated an almost
daily friendliness which lifted and tempered the old invalid's lot and
life.
Di flashed out at the door again, on some trivial permission.
"A good many of mamma's stitches in that dress to keep clean," Ina
called after.
"Early, darling, early!" her father reminded her. A faint regurgitation of
his was somehow invested with the paternal.
"What's this?" cried Dwight Herbert Deacon abruptly.
On the clock shelf lay a letter.
"Oh, Dwight!" Ina was all compunction. "It came this morning. I
forgot."

"I forgot it too! And I laid it up there." Lulu was eager for her share of
the blame.
"Isn't it understood that my mail can't wait like this?"
Dwight's sense of importance was now being fed in gulps.
"I know. I'm awfully sorry," Lulu said, "but you hardly ever get a
letter----"
This might have made things worse, but it provided Dwight with a
greater importance.
"Of course, pressing matter goes to my office," he admitted it. "Still,
my mail should have more careful----"
He read, frowning. He replaced the letter, and they hung upon his
motions as he tapped the envelope and regarded them.
"Now!" said he. "What do you think I have to tell you?"
"Something nice," Ina was sure.
"Something surprising," Dwight said portentously.
"But, Dwight--is it _nice?_" from his Ina.
"That depends. I like it. So'll Lulu." He leered at her. "It's company."
"Oh, Dwight," said Ina. "Who?"
"From Oregon," he said, toying with his suspense.
"Your brother!" cried Ina. "Is he coming?"
"Yes. Ninian's coming, so he says."
"Ninian!" cried Ina again. She was excited, round-eyed, her moist lips
parted. Dwight's brother Ninian. How long was it? Nineteen years.

South America, Central America, Mexico, Panama "and all." When
was he coming and what was he coming for?
"To see me," said Dwight. "To meet you. Some day next week. He
don't know what a charmer Lulu is, or he'd come quicker."
Lulu flushed terribly. Not from the implication. But from the
knowledge that she was not a charmer.
The clock struck. The child Monona uttered a cutting shriek. Herbert's
eyes flew not only to the child but to his wife. What was this, was their
progeny hurt?
"Bedtime," his wife elucidated, and added: "Lulu, will you take her to
bed? I'm pretty tired."
Lulu rose and took Monona by the hand, the child hanging back and
shaking her straight hair in an unconvincing negative.
As they crossed the room, Dwight Herbert Deacon, strolling about and
snapping his fingers, halted and cried out sharply:
"Lulu. One moment!"
He approached her. A finger was extended, his lips were parted, on his
forehead was a frown.
"You picked the flower on the plant?" he asked incredulously.
Lulu made no reply. But the child Monona felt herself lifted and borne
to the stairway