"There, there!" the mother said, and, as if feeling the need of placating this harsh judge, continued gently: "Cora isn't strong, Hedrick, and she does have a hard time. Almost every one of the other girls in her set is at the seashore or somewhere having a gay summer. You don't realize, but it's mortifying to have to be the only one to stay at home, with everybody knowing it's because your father can't afford to send her. And this house is so hopeless," Mrs. Madison went on, extending her plea hopefully; "it's impossible to make it attractive, but Cora keeps trying and trying: she was all morning on her knees gilding those chairs for the music-room, poor child, and----"
"`Music-room'!" sneered the boy. "Gilt chairs! All show-off! That's all she ever thinks about. It's all there is to Cora, just show-off, so she'll get a string o' fellows chasin' after her. She's started for this Corliss just exactly the way she did for Ray Vilas!"
"Hedrick!"
"Just look at her!" he cried vehemently. "Don't you know she's tryin' to make this Corliss think it's HER playin' the piano right now?"
"Oh, no----"
"Didn't she do that with Ray Vilas?" he demanded quickly.
"Wasn't that exactly what she did the first time he ever came here--got Laura to play and made him think it was HER?
Didn't she?"
"Oh--just in fun." Mrs. Madison's tone lacked conviction; she turned, a little confusedly, from the glaring boy and fumbled among the silver on the kitchen table. "Besides--she told him afterward that it was Laura."
"He walked in on her one day when she was battin' away at the piano herself with her back to the door. Then she pretended it had been a joke, and he was so far gone by that time he didn't care. He's crazy, anyway," added the youth, casually. "Who is this Corliss?"
"He owns this house. His family were early settlers and used to be very prominent, but they're all dead except this one. His mother was a widow; she went abroad to live and took him with her when he was about your age, and I don't think he's ever been back since."
"Did he use to live in this house?"
"No; an aunt of his did. She left it to him when she died, two years ago. Your father was agent for her."
"You think this Corliss wants to sell it?"
"It's been for sale all the time he's owned it. That's why we moved here; it made the rent low."
"Is he rich?"
"They used to have money, but maybe it's all spent. It seemed to me he might want to raise money on the house, because I don't see any other reason that could bring him back here. He's already mortgaged it pretty heavily, your father told me. I don't----" Mrs. Madison paused abruptly, her eyes widening at a dismaying thought. "Oh, I do hope your father will know better than to ask him to stay to dinner!"
Hedrick's expression became cryptic. "Father won't ask him," he said. "But I'll bet you a thousand dollars he stays!"
The mother followed her son's thought and did not seek to elicit verbal explanation of the certainty which justified so large a venture. "Oh, I hope not," she said. "Sarah's threatening to leave, anyway; and she gets so cross if there's extra cooking on wash-days."
