It was a fleeting effect, but it did seem as if she had almost laughed, then caught herself.

And there was a tremolo defect in the organ tone with which she now again demanded in blistering politeness, "May I ask what this means ?" The quick-thinking Merle twin had by now devised an exit from any complicity in whatever was meant.

He saw his way out.

He spoke up brightly and with no shadow of guilt upon his fair young face.
"I told her it was wrong for the young to smoke; it stunts their growth and leads to evil companions.

But she wouldn't listen to me." There was a nice regret in his tone.
Miss Juliana ignored him.
"Patricia!" she said, terribly.
But the late Ben Blunt, after the first devastating shock, had been recovering vitality for this ordeal.
"I don't care!" she announced.