ella? Was he hurt?"

"The account says Mr. Brand wasn't hurt at all. But some of the others
were--one rather badly, and Miss Andrews had her scalp cut. I hope it
won't spoil her beauty."

"It must have been a narrow escape for them all," Henrietta commented
in shocked tones as she glanced down the column. "Poor Mildred! She
will be wild with anxiety and jealousy! You know, Bella, she can't
bear for another woman to have a smile from him, or a little attention
of any sort."

"Sh-h-h! Mother's coming! Do hide the paper quick and please talk real
fast all through breakfast, so she won't think to ask for it until
after you're gone. Mother would never, never let me go out with him in
his auto again if she knew about this accident."

"I don't think you ought to, anyway, Bella. I wish you wouldn't."

"What harm does it do? And it gives me a little fun--about all I ever
have, you know. Delia is having another season of introspection," she
went on laughingly as Mrs. Marne entered the room and all three seated
themselves at the table. "It has lasted two days already and I'm
trembling with anxiety as to what will happen next. She was in such a
brown study this morning that she would have sugared the eggs and
salted the coffee if I hadn't been on the watch."

"Do you think she's making up her mind again to leave us?" said Mrs.
Marne apprehensively.

"Oh, Delia's all right, except when she gets uneasy about the scarcity
of matrimonial chances in this neighborhood. She doesn't really want
to marry, at least not now, but she likes to think she could if she
wanted to and she likes to see a new man once in a while, as she says,
'to pass a word with.' And I sympathize with her, even if I do have
three letters a week from Warren."

"Bella!" exclaimed her mother, but with more amusement than reproof in
her voice.

"You would, too, if you were twenty-five years younger," said Bella,
leaning over to pat her mother's arm affectionately. "Anyway, I prove
my sympathy with Delia by bringing to her all the stray crumbs of
comfort I can find. I haven't told her yet--I'm waiting for her fit of
introspection to reach the acute stage--but the grocer has got a new
delivery boy, a nice young man, good-looking and polite. I wish
somebody would be that kind to me!" she laughed, with a whimsical pout
of her pretty lips. "Harry, if Mr. Brand says anything to you today
about coming over here in his motor-car--" Henrietta looked up with a
disappr