Fine Spirits [Spirits 02] Read Online Free

weeping willow, I felt as though it was weeping for me. The air was thick and cold, and I hugged my coat around me in the car, feeling miserable and oppressed and generally lousy. Not even the appreciative glances I got from the conductor and several of my fellow passengers cheered me. I wanted my husband to value me, not a bunch of strangers.
           When we came to the end of the line and I got off the car, I noticed the conductor staring at me as if he was worried about me. “Is anything the matter, Miss?”
           “Not a thing,” I lied. “But thanks for asking.” I gave him a quick smile to let him know I was fine, even though I wasn't, and commenced walking briskly to Mrs. Bissel's mansion.
           As mansions go, Mrs. Bissel's was kind of small. I mean, Mrs. Kincaid's mansion on Orange Grove Boulevard had a huge iron fence around it, an electrically operated gate, and a man to guard it. I don't know how many acres of prime Pasadena property Mrs. Kincaid owned, but she had an entire orange grove in her back yard.
           In contrast, you could walk right up to Mrs. Bissel's front door from the street. Of course, it was a long walk. She owned all the property from her house on the corner of Maiden Lane and Foothill to Lake Avenue, and everything behind her house as far as a street called Las Flores. She owned a hunk of land. I guess it didn't look as impressive as Mrs. Kincaid's property because there was no iron fence surrounding it.
           The house itself was smaller than the Kincaid mansion, too, although it was still huge. It was a three-storied, stucco, beige-colored house with brown trim. A balcony on the second floor looked out over the big, rolling lawn in front. Mrs. Bissel's back yard featured a circular drive surrounding a monkey-puzzle tree she'd imported from Australia.
           Behind the tree, on the other side of the circular drive from the house, Mrs. Bissel had a rose garden that looked and smelled wonderful during the summertime. Some stairs led from the rose garden up to a little picnic area where Mrs. Bissel entertained friends during the warm months.
           That day I was glad I didn't have to go through the back door, because I'm sure looking at the bare, brown rose garden and the empty picnic area would only make me feel worse, if such a thing was possible.
           Mrs. Bissel also owned a couple of horses, both of which were grazing in the field between her house and Lake Avenue that day. I blessed her for those horses. They looked so pretty, and I desperately needed something pleasant in my life just then. One of them was brown and the other had brown-and-white spots, and I could imagine red Indians riding them across the plains in a Zane Grey novel. I didn't know what variety of horse they were, although I knew they must have had better pedigrees than our own old horse, Brownie, who lived in back of our house, and who was getting lazier and more cantankerous with each passing day.
           Heck, they had better pedigrees than Billy and me, if anybody cared to check. Whatever their ancestry, those horses looked swell, and watching them made me feel a tiny bit better, although not much.
           The lawn in front of the Bissel place had three sloping hills on it. Her front porch ran the entire width of the house. The grass was green and well tended, although it was getting a little yellow because it was that time of year. A row of bird of paradise had been planted in a garden running the length of the porch, and there were a bunch of rosebushes in front of the bird of paradise.
           Nothing was blooming on that depressing fall day, but the rolling lawn still looked pretty. Fortunately for my shoes, there was a concrete walkway running from the street to the porch, so my heels didn't get stuck in the dirt on my way to the house.
           As soon as I neared the doorbell and even before I pressed it, I heard Mrs.