Will O’ the Wisp by Patricia Wentworth Page A

David,” she said meekly.
    After dinner she sat curled in a chair with a book. Eleanor, passing behind her, caught the title and leant over her shoulder.
    â€œFolly, where did you get that? It’s a beast of a book. Why do you read it?” The low indignant whisper was pitched for Folly’s ear.
    Folly smiled at the page she was reading.
    â€œWhy do you?”
    â€œTo please Mrs. Grundy,” said Folly in a voice that was meant to carry across the room. She gazed artlessly at David, who was standing with his back to the fire reading the paper. “ And Mr. Grundy,” she added.
    Eleanor went back to her own chair. She was still picking up the stray threads of her embroidery when Folly ran across the room to David.
    â€œDavid—”
    David looked over the paper frowning.
    â€œWhat is it?”
    â€œDavid, Eleanor says this isn’t a proper book for me to read.”
    She held it out, and the frown became a scowl.
    â€œWhere did you pick that up?”
    â€œGeorge had it,” said Folly with downcast eyes.
    â€œGeorge?”
    â€œâ€™M—George March.”
    A scandalized Betty cut into the conversation:
    â€œYou don’t call your father George?”
    â€œAlways,” said Folly firmly.
    Then she turned back to David.
    â€œIs it as bad as all that? I’m glad I took it away from him. I have to be very careful about George’s morals.”
    David was torn between a desire to burst out laughing and a most raging desire to pick Folly up and give her a good shaking. He did neither. Instead, he dropped one side of the paper he was holding, took the book out of Folly’s hand, and pitched it behind him on to the blazing logs.
    â€œO-oh!” said Folly. “What will George say?”
    â€œI haven’t the slightest idea,” said David, and went back to his paper.
    Folly made a face at the advertisement sheet of The Times , a little ugly, malicious face. Then she ran to Eleanor.
    â€œDarling, give me a nice book to read—the sort I’d read if I was Flora, all about a strong, silent hero and a fearfully good heroine who simply adores him and licks his boots.”
    Presently, as she sat on a cushion at Eleanor’s feet snuggled up over the “nice” book, one of the little bunches of black curls fell off and obscured the page. Folly came out with a monosyllable which the “fearfully good heroine” would not have used.
    Betty dropped a card, looked down her nose, and said: “Oh, Folly!”
    Eleanor patted the little shorn head, and Folly sighed with ostentation. Then she picked up the curls, sat them up very stiffly on the thin wire mount, tickled Eleanor’s hand with them, and finally stuck them bolt upright in the silver ribbon on the top of her head, where they waved like elfish court feathers gone black. Perhaps they were in mourning for Folly’s good behaviour.
    David did not take the least notice of them or of Folly. When he had finished The Times , he plunged into a book. When he said good-night to Folly, he looked over her head at Eleanor.
    Folly went upstairs with a little scarlet patch on either cheek. An hour later, Eleanor, coming late from Betty’s room, stopped at her door, opened it, and stood there listening. There was such a stillness that she felt her way to the bed and switched on the shaded light beside it.
    Folly lay crumpled up with her clenched fists under her chin like a baby; her little face was stained with tears, the black lashes all stuck together by threes and fours in little points; her lips were parted. She seemed to be sunk in the soundest depths of sleep.
    Eleanor put out the light and went away troubled.
    David came down to his early breakfast next morning to find that Miss Folly March intended to breakfast with him; and not only to breakfast with him, but to accompany him to town.
    â€œWhat on earth do you want to go to town for?”
    â€œâ€™M—” said