Chapter 1

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_Title:_ A Previous Engagement
_Date of first publication:_ 1909
_Author:_ Harriet Lummis Smith
_Date first posted:_ Nov. 21, 2018
_Date last updated:_ Nov. 21, 2018
Faded Page eBook #20181185

This ebook was produced by: Jen Haines & the online Distributed
Proofreaders Canada team at https://www.pgdpcanada.net

[Cover Illustration]

A PREVIOUS ENGAGEMENT

* * * * *

A Story
By HARRIET LUMMIS SMITH.

Betty began to think that she had misjudged Cornelia. Ever since the
invitation had come for Billy Randolph’s yachting party on the 11th
Cornelia had been so full of kindly suggestions, so magnanimously
indifferent to the fact that she herself was not invited, that Betty’s
tender conscience was pricked by many a compunction.

“I always thought that she took her revenge on me when I was invited and
she wasn’t,” reflected Betty. “It shows how easy it is to get suspicious
and misjudge people. But, oh, dear. I never was suspicious till I came
to live at Uncle Chester’s.”

After continued self-reproach and many excellent resolves, it certainly
was distressing to overhear snatches of a conversation suggesting that
Corneila’s kindness was not altogether disinterested.

With cheeks aflame Betty marched into the next room, and Cornelia
stopped in the middle of a sentence, while Aunt Emily looked coldly
annoyed.

“Who is it that is coming to dinner Wednesday?” demanded Betty, who
believed in short cuts and direct methods.

Cornelia did not reply. Aunt Emily indulged in an impressive pause
before she answered, “It is a friend of Alan’s.”

“I thought I heard you say Mr. Burnham, and I wondered if it could be
the Walter Burnham who was such a friend of Ernest’s in college. I’d
give anything to meet him.”

Aunt Emily and Cornelia exchanged glances. “Unfortunately, you have an
engagement,” the other woman reminded her.

“Oh, I’ll break it. Walter Burnham was my brother’s dearest friend, and
I’d give up a dozen yachting parties before I’d miss the chance of
seeing him.”

Cornelia’s mamma turned majestically to Betty.

“In this world, my dear Betty, we are not expected to do exactly as we
please. I have brought Cornelia up to believe that an engagement is a
promise, and therefore sacred.”

“But I could explain to Billy Randolph, and he’s so good-natured”——

“We will not discuss the matter further, Betty. It is not a question of
Mr. Randolph’s good nature, but of your own good breeding. I shall
expect you to keep your engagements, as Cornelia would do in your
place.”

Betty looked across at the mirror on the other side of the room and
surprised a malicious smile on the face of Cornelia. It had all been
planned beforehand. That was what the smile acknowledged.

Betty walked out of the room, afraid to trust herself to speak. Her old
suspicion that her cousin feared the comparison of her more mature
charms with those of pink-and-white 18 had become a certainty.

Under other circumstances Betty would have laughed over the discovery
with a half-pitying, half-amused wonder. But this was Walter Burnham,
her far-away brother’s college friend, about whom she had woven romantic
fancies when her skirts came just below her knees.

And now he was to take dinner at her home, and she would be on Billy
Randolph’s yacht, listening to Billy’s tiresome stories. Open rebellion
against Aunt Emily was out of the question. But the extremity of
defiance may be the opportunity of diplomacy.

The corner druggist had a call from Betty that afternoon. “I want
something for a cold,” she murmured sweetly as she leaned toward him
with a pretty air of appealing confidence.

The druggist was beginning to expatiate on the virtues of a well-known
remedy when she checked him. “You don’t understand. I don’t want to cure
a cold—I want to get one.”

The man stared, began to laugh and ended by looking interested as he
caught the faintest glint of a twinkle in the blue eyes turned
appealingly upon him.

“Ah, I see,” he said with mock gravity. “You want to sneeze and have
your eyes run and all that sort of thing, and be yourself again after a
few hours. Well, I’ve got some snuff here that will fix you up in great
shape.” He took the bottle from the shelf. “It’s an unusual order,” he
added.

Betty blushed. “It’s an unusual occasion,” she confessed.

When Betty made her appearance in the dining room on the morning of the
11th a handkerchief of heroic proportions temporarily obscured her face.
As she dropped into her chair she sneezed, and the attention of the
family was at once focussed upon her. Her pretty blue eyes were
bloodshot and swollen, her small nose a most unbecoming shade of pink.
Apologetically, she bowed her head and sneezed again, and yet again.

“Really, Betty,” said Aunt Emily, with more annoyance than sympathy,
“you must have been extremely careless to take such a cold.”

“And moreover, my dear,” said Uncle Chester, “you’ll find it necessary
to be very careful. I shall insist on your remaining indoors today.”

Cornelia made a false move. “Betty has an engagement, papa. She is to go
on Billy Randolph’s yachting party.”

Betty sneezed twice.

“A yachting party!” cried Uncle Chester. “Preposterous. I will telephone
young Randolph myself and explain that Betty is not fit to leave the
house.”

“Ker-choo!” said Betty, with a grateful glance at her uncle, while Aunt
Emily put in quickly: “Instead of yachting, the poor child should go to
bed at once.”

“Ker-choo!” said Betty again, and, with coffee and rolls dispatched amid
much sneezing and constant use of her handkerchief, she straightway
sneezed her way upstairs to her room and softly bolted the door.

Betty did not make her appearance at luncheon. Susan took up a tray to
her room, and when Cornelia knocked later in the afternoon there was no
answer. Cornelia strode away on tip-toe. A good sleep was the best thing
in the world for a heavy cold. If Betty did not wake till morning, all
the better.