"BAB A SUB-DEB" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rinehart Mary Roberts)

there waiting for me, and Betty Anderson and Jane Raleigh. And
I hadn't been in the room five minutes before I knew that they
all knew. It turned out later that Hannah was engaged to the
Adams's butler, and she had told him, and he had told Elaine's
governess, who is still there and does the ordering, and Elaine
sends her stockings home for her to darn.
Sis had told Carter, too, I saw that, and among them they
had rather a good time. Carter sat down at the piano and struck
a few chords, chanting "My Love is like a white, white rose."
"Only you know" he said, turning to me, "that's wrong. It
ought to be a `red, red rose.'"
"Certainly not. The word is `white.'"
"Oh, is it?" he said, with his head on one side. "Strange
that both you and Harold should have got it wrong."
I confess to a feeling of uneasiness at that moment.
Tea came, and Carter insisted on pouring.
"I do so love to pour!" he said. "Really, after a long
day's shopping, tea is the only thing that keeps me going until
dinner. Cream or lemon, Leila dear?"
"Both," Sis said in an absent manner, with her eyes on me.
"Barbara, come into the den a moment. I want to show you
mother's Xmas gift."
She stocked in ahead of me, and lifted a book from the
table. Under it was the photograph.
"You wretched child!" she said. "Where did you get that?"
"That's not your affair, is it?"
"I'm going to make it my affair. Did he give it to you?"
"Have you read what's written on it?"
"Where did you meet him?"
I hesitated because I am by nature truthfull. But at last
I said:
"At school."
"Oh," she said slowly. "So you met him at school! What was
he doing there? Teaching elocution?"
"Elocution!"
"This is Harold, is it?"
"Certainly." Well, he _was_ Harold, if I chose to call him
that, wasn't he? Sis gave a little sigh.
"You're quite hopeless, Bab. And, although I'm perfectly
sure you want me to take the thing to mother, I'll do nothing of
the sort."
_She flung it into the fire_. I was raging. It had cost me
a dollar. It was quite brown when I got it out, and a corner was
burned off. But I got it.
"I'll thank you to burn your own things," I said with
dignaty. And I went back to the drawing room.
The girls and Carter Brooks were talking in an undertone
when I got there. I knew it was about me. And Jane came over to
me and put her arm around me.
"You poor thing!" she said. "Just fight it out. We're all