The Butterfly House | Page 5

Daisy's thin knees.
"You look half frozen," said Alice.
"I don't mind being frozen, but I do mind being scared," replied Daisy sharply. She removed the robe with a twitch.
"If that old horse stumbles and goes down and kicks, I want to be able to get out without being all tangled up in a robe and dragged," said she.
"While the horse is kicking and down I don't see how he can drag you very far," said Alice with a slight laugh. Then the horse stumbled. Daisy Shaw knocked quickly on the front window with her little, nervous hand in its tight, white kid glove.
"Do please hold your reins tighter," she called. Again the misty blue eyes rolled about, the head nodded, the rotary jaws were seen, the robe dragged, the reins lay loosely.
"That wasn't a stumble worth mentioning," said Alice Mendon.
"I wish he would stop chewing and drive," said poor Daisy Shaw vehemently. "I wish we had a liveryman as good as that Dougherty in Axminister. I was making calls there the other day, and it was as slippery as it is now, and he held the reins up tight every minute. I felt safe with him."
"I don't think anything will happen."
"It does seem to me if he doesn't stop chewing, and drive, I shall fly!" said Daisy.
Alice regarded her with a little wonder. Such anxiety concerning personal safety rather puzzled her. "My horses ran away the other day, and Dick went down flat and barked his knees; that's why I have Fitzgerald to-day," said she. "I was not hurt. Nobody was hurt except the horse. I was very sorry about the horse."
"I wish I had an automobile," said Daisy. "You never know what a horse will do next."
Alice laughed again slightly. "There is a little doubt sometimes as to what an automobile will do next," she remarked.
"Well, it is your own brain that controls it, if you can run it yourself, as you do."
"I am not so sure. Sometimes I wonder if the automobile hasn't an uncanny sort of brain itself. Sometimes I wonder how far men can go with the invention of machinery without putting more of themselves into it than they bargain for," said Alice. Her smooth face did not contract in the least, but was brooding with speculation and thought.
Then the horse stumbled again, and Daisy screamed, and again tapped the window.
"He won't go way down," said Alice. "I think he is too stiff. Don't worry."
"There is no stumbling to worry about with an automobile," said Daisy.
"You couldn't use one on this hill without more risk than you take with a stumbling horse," replied Alice. Just then a carriage drawn by two fine bays passed them, and there was an interchange of nods.
"There is Mrs. Sturtevant," said Alice. "She isn't using the automobile to-day."
"Doctor Sturtevant has had that coachman thirty years, and he doesn't chew, he drives," said Daisy.
Then they drew up before the house which was their destination, Mrs. George B. Slade's. The house was very small, but perkily pretentious, and they drove under the porte-coch��re to alight.
"I heard Mr. Slade had been making a great deal of money in cotton lately," Daisy whispered, as the carriage stopped behind Mrs. Sturtevant's. "Mr. and Mrs. Slade went to the opera last week. I heard they had taken a box for the season, and Mrs. Slade had a new black velvet gown and a pearl necklace. I think she is almost too old to wear low neck."
"She is not so very old," replied Alice. "It is only her white hair that makes her seem so." Then she extended a rather large but well gloved hand and opened the coup�� door, while Jim Fitzgerald sat and chewed and waited, and the two young women got out. Daisy had some trouble in holding up her long skirts. She tugged at them with nervous energy, and told Alice of the twenty-five cents which Fitzgerald would ask for the return trip. She had wished to arrive at the club in fine feather, but had counted on walking home in the dusk, with her best skirts high-kilted, and saving an honest penny.
"Nonsense; of course you will go with me," said Alice in the calmly imperious way she had, and the two mounted the steps. They had scarcely reached the door before Mrs. Slade's maid, Lottie, appeared in her immaculate width of apron, with carefully-pulled-out bows and little white lace top-knot. "Upstairs, front room," she murmured, and the two went up the polished stairs. There was a landing halfway, with a diamond paned window and one rubber plant and two palms, all very glossy, and all three in nice green jardini��res which exactly matched the paper on the walls of the hall. Mrs. George B. Slade had a mania for exactly matching things. Some of