Look at his smile—and she doesn't seem to mind.
Brazen creature!" And Mrs. Parry shuddered virtuously.
The other lady thought that Ware had a most fascinating smile, and was a remarkably handsome young man of the fair Saxon type.
He certainly appeared to be much interested in the conversation of Miss Denham.
But what young man could resist so beautiful a woman?
For in spite of Mrs. Parry's disparagement Anne was a splendidly handsome brunette—"with a temper," added Mrs. McKail mentally, as she eyed the well-suited couple.
Mrs. Parry's tongue still raged like a prairie fire.
"And she knows he's engaged," she snorted. "Look at poor Daisy Kent out in the cold, while that woman monopolizes Ware!
Ugh!"
"Is Miss Kent engaged to Mr. Ware?"
"For three years they have been engaged—a family arrangement, I understand.
The late Kent and the late Ware," explained Mrs. Parry, who always spoke thus politely of men, "were the greatest of friends, which I can well understand, as each was an idiot.
However, Ware died first and left his estate to Giles.
A few months later Kent died and made Morley the guardian of his daughter Daisy, already contracted to be married to Giles."
"Does he love her?"
"Oh, he's fond of her in a way, and he is anxious to obey the last wish of his father.
But it seems to me that he is more in love with that black cat."
"Hush!
You will be heard."
Mrs. Parry snorted.
"I hope so, and by the cat herself," she said grimly. "I can't bear the woman.
If I were Mrs. Morley I'd have her out of the house in ten minutes.
Turn her out in the snow to cool her hot blood.
What right has she to attract Ware and make him neglect that dear angel over there?
See, yonder is Daisy.
There's a face, there's charm, there's hair!" finished Mrs. Parry, quite unconscious that she was using the latest London slang. "I call her a lovely creature."
Mrs. McKail did not agree with her venomous cousin.
Daisy was a washed-out blonde with large blue eyes and a slack mouth.
Under a hot July sky and with a flush of color she would have indeed been pretty; but the cold of winter and the neglect of Giles Ware shrivelled her up.
In spite of the warmth of the room, the gaiety of the scene, she looked pinched and older than her years.
But there was some sort of character in her face, for Mrs. McKail caught her directing a glance full of hatred at the governess.
In spite of her ethereal prettiness, Daisy Kent was a good hater. Mrs. McKail felt sure of that.
"And she is much more of the cat type than the other one is," thought the observant lady, too wise to speak openly.
However, Mrs. Parry still continued to destroy a character every time she opened her mouth.
She called the rector a Papist; hinted that the doctor's wife was no better than she should be; announced that Morley owed money to his tradesmen, that he had squandered his wife's fortune; and finally wound up by saying that he would spend Daisy Kent's money when he got it.
"If it ever does come to her," finished this amiable person.
"Did her father leave her money?" asked Mrs. McKail.
"He!" snapped the other; "my dear, he was as poor as a church mouse, and left Daisy only a hundred a year to live on.
That is the one decent thing about Morley.
He did take Daisy in, and he does treat her well, though to be sure she is a pretty girl, and, as I say, he has an eye."
"Then where does the fortune come from?"
"Kent was a half-brother who went out to America, and it is rumored that he made a fortune, which he intends to leave to his niece—that's Daisy.
But I don't know all the details of this," added Mrs. Parry, rubbing her beaky nose angrily; "I must find out somehow.
But here, my dear, those children are stripping the tree.
Let us assist.
We must give pleasure to the little ones.
I have had six of my own, all married," ended the good lady irrelevantly.
She might have added that her four sons and two daughters kept at a safe distance from their respected parent.
On occasions she did pay a visit to one or the other, and usually created a disturbance.
Yet this spiteful, mischief-making woman read her Bible, thought herself a Christian, and judged others as harshly as she judged herself leniently.