Page:Sheila and Others (1920).djvu/131

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A DOUBTFUL POINT
119

gressive daughters might minister to. I felt as though some small green tendril had started out from Mrs. Willkit's soul seeking the light on its own account, and I resolved it should not suffer the blight of cold adversity if I could help it. So I kept on putting little opportunities in her way in spite of the aberrations of the blouses, and when summer came round again I had two proposals to make, that I thought might be to our mutual benefit. After gaining the consent of her family she joyfully accepted both. One was that she should "do up" our summer's supply of fruit (for a substantial honorarium) while we were away for general repairs; and the other, that our amiable Polly might spend her summer at the Willkit estate in a Toronto environ. For we had taken Polly to our summer habitation the year before, and the family had set its foot down firmly against ever repeating the experiment, leaving me as ever to settle the problem thus created as best I could. And Poll, in her usual tactful way had professed the most instant and violent attachment to Mrs. Willkit in the first moment of their meeting, which of course captivated the equally charmed lady. Nothing is so flattering to middle age as the