The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mrs. Dud's Sister, by Josephine Daskam

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Title: Mrs. Dud's Sister

Author: Josephine Daskam

Release Date: November 6, 2007 [EBook #23369]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MRS. DUD'S SISTER ***

Produced by David Widger

MRS. DUD'S SISTER

By Josephine Daskam

Copyright, 1903, by Charles Scribner's Sons

They were having tea on the terrace. As Varian strolled up to the group
he wished that Hunter could see the picture they made--Hunter, who
had not been in America for thirty years, and who had been so honestly
surprised when Varian had spoken of Mrs. Dud's pretty maids--she always
had pretty ones, even to the cook's third assistant.

"Maids? Maids? It used to be 'help,'" he had protested. "You don't mean
to say they have waitresses in Binghamville now?"

Varian had despaired of giving him any idea.

"Come over and see Mrs. Dud," he had urged, "and do her portrait. We've
moved on since you left us, you know. She's a wonder--she really is.
When you remember how she used to carry her father's dinner to the store
Saturday afternoons--"

"And now I suppose she sports real Mechlin on her cap," assented Hunter,
anxious to show how perfectly he caught the situation.

Varian had roared helplessly. "Cap? Cap!" he had moaned finally. "Oh, my
sainted granny! Cap! My poor fellow, your view of Binghamville must be
like the old maps of Africa in the green geography, that said 'desert'
and 'interior' and 'savage tribes' from time to time. I should like
awfully to see Mrs. Dud in a cap."

Hunter had looked puzzled.

"But, dear me! she might very well wear one, I should think," he had
murmured defensively. "I don't wish to be invidious, but surely
Lizzie must be--let's see; 'eighty, 'ninety--why, she must be between
forty-five and fifty now."

Varian had waved his hand dramatically. "Nobody considers Mrs. Dud and
time in the same breath. If you could see her in her golf rig! Or on
a horse! She even sheds a lustre on the rest of us. I forget my
rheumatism!"

But Hunter, retreating behind his determination to avoid a second
seasickness--it might have been sin