Page:St. Nicholas (serial) (IA stnicholasserial321dodg).pdf/479

Mrs. R. Yes, I can understand it perfectly, and so can you when it ’s all broke to you.

Mrs. T. I wish I could hear it just as Roweny sent it.

Mrs. R. Well, it’s well you did n’t, ’cause if your nerves is so overwrought now, what would they be if you ’d ’a’ known it all to oncet? [Noise outside. Mrs. Donnell’s voice heard calling out in excited tones to some neighbor]

Mrs. Donnell. [Rushes in with arms upraised] Ach, what has happened? Poor Mis’ Toobs! I see the boy had a tilegraph for Mis’ Toobs. We had a tilegraph, too,’bout one o’ Mamie’s b’ys; he ’s died from overstudy of the brain. And soon’s I could, I run over to see what bad news Mis’ Toobs had. The tilegraph b'y was here so long I thought she might ’a’ gone into a dead faint or somethin’, but I could n’t come sooner. Did yere tilegraph come paid?

Mrs. R. [Grandly| Yes, Mrs. Tubbs’s come all paid, and it was an unrepeated message and cost nobody knows what. The boy even said he did n’t know what was in it. It was very private—just from Roweny to her mother.

Mrs. T. I ’d be glad to have Mrs. Donnell stay and hear it, Mrs. Raven.

Mrs. D. [Takes seat] Thanks. How fortunate ye was here to break the news, Mis’ Raven.

Mrs. R. [Majestically] I was n’t here. They sent for me. And I got here in time to save her——yes, before she ’d heard a word of it. If I had n’t’a’ been home the telegraph boy would have read the whole thing right out to her. [Mrs. Donnell breathes a deep sigh of relief]

Mrs. T. [To Mrs. Donnell] Roweny ’s adopted three children. [Mrs. Donnell holds up hands in surprise and dismay]

Mrs. R. You ain’t heard it all, Mrs. Tubbs. The children belongs to her husband, He’s a widower.

Mrs. T. Roweny married! [{{sc|Mrs. Raven]] motions to Tommy for more water. Both women bend over Mrs. Tubbs]

Mrs. R. This is just what I knew would happen if we broke it sudden. But she may as well know all the rest now. Yes, Mrs. Tubbs, Roweny is married to a gentleman with three children; and can you bear it all right if I go on, Mrs. Tubbs, and tell you the rest? [Mrs. Tubbs nods her head energetically] Her husband is a millionaire!

Mrs. D. [Throws up both arms, dipper flying across the room] Ye don’t say! Ye don’t say! Well, well, this is cause for congratulations. I ’m awful glad for ye, Mis’ Toobs, and all yere family. I only hope it won't take ye away from Cinder Corner, but I s’pose the next thing ye ’ll be livin’ with Roweny on Fifth Avenue. Well, well. They say stranger things happens in rale life than in books, and I begin to belave it.

Mrs. T. [Gazes about in dazed way] There ’s no mistake about it?

Mrs. R. [Reads in self-vindication] “Have married a millionaire. Three children. Return home Thursday next.”

Mrs. T. [Takes telegram and gazes vacantly at it] Nothing sister Sarah did ever surprised me so much as this. To be sure, she married a rich man, but she allus said she was goin’ to, and so nobody was much surprised. But Roweny has allus said she was n't goin’ to marry anybody. She allus said she wanted to go as a missionary to the heathens, and I don’t see how she come to change her mind.

Mrs. R. Well, I guess it would change anybody’s mind to get a millionaire as easy as Roweny ’s got hers.

Mrs. D. There goes Miss Simpkins. I must tell her the news. [Motions frantically from window]

Miss Simpkins. What is the matter? Mrs. Tubbs had one o’ her spells?

Mrs. R. I broke some news to Mrs. Tubbs too hasty, I ’m afraid, We had a telegraph here this morning.

Miss S. [Snaps off her words] You did! Why, I ’ve been settin’ right in the window trimmin’ a new hat, and I never once saw the telegraph bey, nor didn’t even see Mrs. Donnell come over.

Mrs. R. [Impressively] It was an unrepeated message.

Miss S. Oh,that explains it. I thought the telegraph boy could n’t been on the street and I not know it.