Part 37 (1/2)

Thus effectually silenced, Mrs. Redmond waited for Martine to read her letter.

”You ought to like Mrs. Blair,” said Amy, for Martine still held the opened envelope in her hand without attempting to read its contents.

”Why?”

”Because she has style, Martine, and you generally put that before everything else; but read your letter, I would like to hear where they are, for I am always interested in Edith's doings.”

”Yes, yes,” yet Martine did not take the letter from the envelope; ”but people need something besides style. I get so out of patience with Mrs.

Blair when she and mamma are together. She always has the air of disapproving of mamma for having married a western man. She makes me think of the New Yorker who said to a Chicago woman, 'How can you bear to live so far away?' 'Away? From what?' asked the other. And the New Yorker couldn't say a word.”

”But that isn't like Mrs. Blair, for she always has a word ready for everything. Do read your letter, Martine,” continued Amy.

So Martine glanced hastily over the pages, making comments as she read.

”Oh, it's a kind of duty letter. She wants me to think it a great privilege that you have allowed me to travel with you this summer. She seems to have an especially high regard for you, Priscilla. I won't flatter you by reading what she says. Oh, yes, and she wants to give me some bad news. She has seen mamma at Carlsbad and thinks her looking very miserable. Well, that's about all, except that she wishes Edith cared more for Europe.”

”Yes,” interposed Amy, ”Edith was very anxious to go West this summer with Philip and Pamela; they're having a fine trip over the Canadian Rockies.”

Martine evidently was not listening to Amy. Her face wore an expression of great bewilderment, and then, with an exclamation of surprise she thrust the letter into Amy's hand:

”Read it,” she cried; ”isn't it extraordinary?” and she pointed to the signature. ”'Audrey Balfour Blair!' Did you know that was her name?”

”Why, I'm not sure,” responded Amy. ”I never had a letter from Mrs.

Blair.”

”Nor I,” responded Martine, ”though Edith often writes to me.”

”That's why Balfour and Audrey seem so familiar to me,” added Priscilla, whose family were on rather intimate terms with Mrs. Blair.

”I never heard even mamma speak of Mrs. Blair by her first name,”

continued Martine. ”Of course I must have known that it was Audrey, but I had never noticed the Balfour before.”

”Well, if Balfour is a family name of Mrs. Blair's it must be of your mother's also; or at least it probably is.”

”In that case,” said Martine, ”then Balfour and I may be cousins.”

”I wish that Eunice and I were cousins.” Priscilla's wistful tone was in contrast to the brighter one in which Martine had spoken.

”What's in a name?” continued the latter. ”I dare say it's only the merest happening that these names are alike.”

”I was going to suggest,” commented Mrs. Redmond, ”that it might be wiser not to build your hopes too high, although I'll admit that there may be some connection between the two families.”

”What pleases me the most,” said Martine, ”is to think of Mrs. Blair's disgust when she hears that her family names belong also to people in Nova Scotia.”

”And one of them a grocer's clerk,” added Amy, whereupon Martine colored deeply.

”Balfour's just as good as Philip Blair, and he won't have to leave college without taking his degree.” Then, as if ashamed of her petulance, she added: ”To find out how things really are I suppose that after this I'll have to take an interest in genealogy. Mrs. Blair belongs to the Colonial Dames and offered to have mamma's name put through, and I think she would have consented to this if I hadn't laughed so at the idea. I dare say the Dames are different from the Daughters. I hope so at any rate, for the Daughters are always waving their ancestors in one another's faces, especially at their meetings, which I am told are like real battles.”

”Oh, no,” protested Mrs. Redmond, ”not always. I've been at some that were very pleasant.”