The Rich Mrs Burgoyne | Page 8

funny at a card party," he went on, always ready to
expand an argument comfortably. "It takes them an hour to settle down
and see how everyone else looks, and whether there happens to be a
streak of dust under the piano; and then when the game is just well
started, a maid is nudging you in the elbow to take a plate of hot
chicken, and another, on the other side, is holding out sandwiches, and
all the women are running to look at the prizes. Now when men play
cards--
"Oh, Barry, don't get started!" his cousin impatiently implored. "I'm too
tired to listen. Come out and fix the table."
"Wish I could really help you," said Barry, as they crossed the hall; and
as a further attempt to soothe her ruffled feelings, he added amiably,
"The place looks fine. The buttercups came up, didn't they?"
"Beautifully! You were a dear to get them," said Mrs. Carew, quite
mollified.
Welcomed openly by all four maids, Barry was soon contentedly busy
with screws and molding-board, in a corner of the sunny kitchen. He
and Mrs. Binney immediately entered upon a spirited discussion of
equal suffrage, to the intense amusement of the others, who kept him
supplied with sandwiches, cake and various other dainties. The little
piece of work was presently finished to the entire satisfaction of
everyone, and Barry had pocketed his tools, and was ready to go, when
Mrs. Carew returned to the kitchen wide-eyed with news.
"Barry," said she, closing the door behind her, "George is here!"
"Well, George has a right here," said Barry, as the lady cast a cautious
glance over her shoulder.
"But listen," his cousin said excitedly; "he thinks he has sold the Holly
house!"

"Gee whiz!" said Barry simply.
"To a Mrs. Burgoyne," rushed on Mrs. Carew. "She's out there with
George on the porch now; a widow, with two children, and she looks so
sweet. She knows the Hollys. Oh, Barry, if she only takes it; such a
dandy commission for George! He's terribly excited himself. I can tell
by the calm, bored way she's talking about it."
"Who is she? Where'd she come from?" demanded Barry.
"From New York. Her father died last year, in Washington, I think she
said, and she wants to live quietly somewhere with the children. Barry,
will you be an angel?"
"Eventually, I hope to," said Mr. Valentine, grinning, but she did not
hear him.
"Could you, WOULD you, take her over the place this afternoon, Barry?
She seems sure she wants it, and George feels he must get back to the
office to see Tilden. You know he's going to sign for a whole floor of
the Pratt Building to-day. George can't keep Tilden waiting, and it
won't be a bit hard for you, Barry. George says to promise her anything.
She just wants to see about bathrooms, and so on. Will you, Barry?"
"Sure I will," said the obliging Barry. And when Mrs. Carew asked him
if he would like to go upstairs and brush up a little, he accepted the
delicate reflection upon the state of his hair and hands, and said "sure"
again.
CHAPTER III
Mrs. Burgoyne was a sweet-faced, fresh-looking woman about thirty-
two or-three years old, with a quick smile, like a child's, and blue eyes,
set far apart, with a little lift at the corners, that, under level heavy
brows, gave a suggestion of something almost Oriental to her face. She
was dressed simply in black, and a transparent black veil, falling from
her wide hat and flung back, framed her face most becomingly in
square crisp folds.

She and Barry presently walked up River Street in the mellow
afternoon sunlight, and through the old wooden gates of the Holly
grounds. On every side were great high-flung sprays of overgrown
roses, dusty and choked with weeds, ragged pepper tassels dragged in
the grass, and where the path lay under the eucalyptus trees it was
slippery with the dry, crescent-shaped leaves. Bees hummed over rank
poppies and tangled honeysuckle; once or twice a hummingbird came
through the garden on some swift, whizzing journey, and there were
other birds in the trees, little shy brown birds, silent but busy in the late
afternoon. Close to the house an old garden faucet dripped and dripped,
and a noisy, changing group of the brown birds were bathing and
flashing about it. The old Hall stood on a rise of ground, clear of the
trees, and bathed in sunshine. It was an ugly house, following as it did
the fashion of the late seventies; but it was not undignified, with its big
door flanked by bay-windows and its narrow porch bounded by a fat
wooden balustrade and heavy columns. The porch and steps were
weather-stained