The Bat | Page 9

miles from the railroad station, all summer long - and the Bat would never disturb her. Nothing ever did.
She had skimmed through the paper hurriedly; now a headline caught her eye. Failure of Union Bank - wasn't that the bank of which Courtleigh Fleming had been president? She settled down to read the article but it was disappointingly brief. The Union Bank had closed its doors; the cashier, a young man named Bailey, was apparently under suspicion; the article mentioned Courtleigh Fleming's recent and tragic death in the best vein of newspaperese. She laid down the paper and thought - Bailey - Bailey - she seemed to have a vague recollection of hearing about a young man named Bailey who worked in a bank - but she could not remember where or by whom his name had been mentioned.
Well - it didn't matter. She had other things to think about. She must ring for Lizzie - get up and dress. The bright morning sun, streaming in through the long window, made lying in bed an old woman's luxury and she refused to be an old woman.
"Though the worst old woman I ever knew was a man!" she thought with a satiric twinkle. She was glad Sally's daughter - young Dale Ogden - was here in the house with her. The companionship of Dale's bright youth would keep her from getting old-womanish if anything could.
She smiled, thinking of Dale. Dale was a nice child - her favorite niece. Sally didn't understand her, of course - but Sally wouldn't. Sally read magazine articles on the younger generation and its wild ways. "Sally doesn't remember when she was a younger generation herself," thought Miss Cornelia. "But I do - and if we didn't have automobiles, we had buggies - and youth doesn't change its ways just because it has cut its hair. Before Mr. and Mrs. Ogden left for Europe, Sally had talked to her sister Cornelia ... long and weightily, on the problem of Dale. "Problem of Dale, indeed!" thought Miss Cornelia scornfully. "Dale's the nicest thing I've seen in some time. She'd be ten times happier if Sally wasn't always trying to marry her off to some young snip with more of what fools call 'eligibility' than brains! But there, Cornelia Van Gorder - Sally's given you your innings by rampaging off to Europe and leaving Dale with you all summer and you've a lot less sense than I flatter myself you have, if you can't give your favorite niece a happy vacation from all her immediate family - and maybe find her someone who'll make her happy for good and all in the bargain." Miss Cornelia was an incorrigible matchmaker.
Nevertheless, she was more concerned with "the problem of Dale" than she would have admitted. Dale, at her age, with her charm and beauty - why, she ought to behave as if she were walking on air, thought her aunt worriedly. "And instead she acts more as if she were walking on pins and needles. She seems to like being here - I know she likes me - I'm pretty sure she's just as pleased to get a little holiday from Sally and Harry - she amuses herself - she falls in with any plan I want to make, and yet - " And yet Dale was not happy - Miss Cornelia felt sure of it. "It isn't natural for a girl to seem so lackluster and - and quiet - at her age and she's nervous, too - as if something were preying on her mind - particularly these last few days. If she were in love with somebody - somebody Sally didn't approve of particularly - well, that would account for it, of course - but Sally didn't say anything that would make me think that - or Dale either - though I don't suppose Dale would, yet, even to me. I haven't seen so much of her in these last two years - "
Then Miss Cornelia's mind seized upon a sentence in a hurried flow of her sister's last instructions - a sentence that had passed almost unnoticed at the time - something about Dale and "an unfortunate attachment - but of course, Cornelia, dear, she's so young - and I'm sure it will come to nothing now her father and I have made our attitude plain!"
"Pshaw - I bet that's it," thought Miss Cornelia shrewdly. Dale's fallen in love, or thinks she has, with some decent young man without a penny or an 'eligibility' to his name - and now she's unhappy because her parents don't approve - or because she's trying to give him up and finds she can't. Well - " and Miss Cornelia's tight little gray curls trembled with the vehemence of her decision,