"
"I don't think you got any call to introduce me to the Black Pearl
that-a-way, Sadie." Mrs. Thomas's eyes filled with ready tears. "It
ain't manners. I wouldn't have come with her, Miss Gallito, but I got to
see pretty plain that the gentleman," here she blushed and bridled,
"that was courting me was awful anxious to get hold of the money and the
cabin that my last husband, in his grave 'most six months now, left me."
She wiped the tears from her eyes on the back of her hand, a movement
hampered somewhat by the fact that her handkerchief had been fashioned
into a bag to hold some chocolate creams and was tied tightly to her
thumb.
"That's what you get for cavorting around with a spindle-shanked,
knock-kneed, mush-brained jack-rabbit of a man," muttered Mrs. Nitschkan
scornfully.
But this thrust was ignored by Mrs. Thomas. The color had risen on her
cheeks and there was a light in her eyes. Shyly, yet gleefully, she drew
a letter from her pocket. "I got a letter from him to-day with an awful
cute motto in it. Look!" She showed it proudly to Pearl, Jose and
Gallito. "It's on cream-tinted paper, with a red and blue border, an',"
simpering consciously, "it says in black and gold letters, 'A Little
Widow Is a Dangerous Thing.'"
The little group seemed for the moment too stunned to speak. Mrs.
Nitschkan was the first to recover herself. "Gosh a'mighty!" she
murmured in an awed whisper, and allowed her glance to travel slowly
over Mrs. Thomas's well-cushioned, six feet of womanhood,
"A--little--widow!" huskily.
Pages:
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131