"There, there, Mother," put in Aunt Matilda. "I reckon everybody in these parts knows the Starr family."
"Of course," returned the old lady, somewhat mollified. "What else did she say?"
"Nothing much," stammered Rosemary. "That is, I can't remember. She said it was a nice day, or something of that sort, and then she went back home. She didn't stay but a minute." So much was true, even though that minute had agonised Rosemary beyond words.
"What does she look like?" Grandmother continued, with deep interest.
"Not--like anybody we know. Aunt Matilda can tell you better than I can. She saw her too."
Accepting modestly this tribute to her powers of observation, Aunt Matilda took the conversation out of Rosemary's hands, greatly to her relief. The remainder of breakfast was a spirited dialogue. Grandmother's doubt on any one point was quickly silenced by the sarcastic comment from Matilda: "Well, bein' as you've seen her and I haven't, of course you know."
Under the Ban
Meanwhile Rosemary ate, not knowing what she ate, choking down her food with glass after glass of water which by no means assuaged the inner fires. While she was washing the breakfast dishes the other two were discussing Mrs. Lee's hair. Grandmother insisted that it was a wig, as play-actresses always wore them and Mrs. Lee was undoubtedly a play-actress.
"How do you know?" Matilda inquired, with sarcastic inflection.
"If she ain't," Grandmother parried, "what's she gallivantin' around the country for without her husband?"
"Maybe he's dead."
"If he's dead, why ain't she wearin' mourning, as any decent woman would? She's either a play-actress, or else she's a divorced woman, or maybe both." Either condition, in Grandmother's mind, was the seal of social damnation.
"If we was on callin' terms with the Marshs," said Matilda, meditatively, "Mis' Marsh might be bringin' her here."
"Not twice," returned Grandmother, with determination. "This is my house, and I've got something to say about who comes in it. I wouldn't even have Mis' Marsh now, after she's been hobnobbin' with the likes of her."
After reverting for a moment to the copper-coloured hair, which might or might not be a wig, the conversation drifted back to mermaids and the seafaring folk who went astray on the rocks. Aunt Matilda insisted that there were no such things as mermaids, and Grandmother triumphantly dug up the article in question from a copy of The Household Guardian more than three months old.