"I have spoken to Mr. Ames about it," said Dr. Tolbridge to Miss Panney, as two days later they were sitting together in his office, "and we are both agreed that teachers in Thorbury are like the vines on the gable ends of our church; they are needed there, but they do not flourish. You see, so many of our people send their children away to school, that is, when they are really old enough to learn anything."
"I would do it too, if I had children," said the old lady; "but this is a matter which rises above the ordinary points of view. I do not believe that you look at it properly, for if you did you would not sit there and talk so coolly. Do you appreciate the fact that if Miss Drane does not soon get something to do, you will be living on soggy, half-baked bread, greasy fried meat, water-soaked vegetables, and muddy coffee, and every one of your higher sentiments will be merged in dyspepsia?"
The doctor smiled. "I did not suppose it would be as bad as that," he said; "but if what you say is true, let us skip about instantly, and do something."
"That is the sort of action that I am trying to goad you into," said the old lady.
"Oh, I will do what I can," said the doctor, "but I really think there is nothing to be done here, and at this season. People do not want teachers in summer, and I see no promise of a later demand of this sort in Thorbury. We must try elsewhere."
"Not yet," said the other. "I shall not give up Thorbury yet. It is easier for us to work for Miss Drane here than anywhere else, because we are here, and we are not anywhere else. Moreover, she will like to come here, for then she will not be among strangers; so please let us exhaust Thorbury before thinking of any other place."
"Very good," said the doctor, leaning back in his chair, "and now let us exhaust Thorbury as fast as we can, before a patient comes in. I am expecting one."
"If she comes, she can wait," said Miss Panney. "You have a case here which is acute and alarming, and cannot be trifled with."
"How do you know I expect a 'she'?" asked the doctor.
"If it had been a man, he would have been here and gone," saidMiss Panney.
Miss Panney knew as well as any one that immediate employment as a teacher could be rarely obtained in summer, and for this reason she wished to confine her efforts to the immediate neighborhood, where personal persuasion and influence might be brought into action. Moreover, she had said to herself, "If we cannot get any teaching for the girl, we must get her something else to do, for the present. But whatever is to be done must be done here and now, or the old woman will be off before we know it."
She sat for a few moments with her brows knitted in thought. Suddenly she exclaimed, "Is it Susan Clopsey you expect? Very well, then, I will make an exception in her favor. She is just coming in at the gate, and I would not interfere with your practice on her for anything. She has got money and a spinal column, and as long as they both last she is more to be depended on than government bonds. If her troubles ever get into her legs, and I have reason to believe they will, you can afford to hire a little maid for your cook. Old Daniel Clopsey, her grandfather, died at ninety-five, and he had then the same doctorable rheumatism that he had at fifty. I have something to think over, and I will come in again when she is gone."
"Depart, O mercenary being!" exclaimed the doctor, "before you abase my thoughts from sulphate of quinia to filthy lucre."
"Lucre is never filthy until you lose it," said the old lady as she went out on the back piazza, and closed the door behind her.
About twenty minutes later she burst into the doctor's office. "Mercy on us!" she exclaimed, "are you here yet, Susan Clopsey? I must see you, doctor; but don't you go, Susan. I won't keep him more than two minutes."
"Oh, don't mind me," cried Miss Clopsey, a parched maiden of twoscore. "I can wait just as well as not. Where is the pain, Miss Panney? Were you took sudden?"
"Like the pop of a jackbox. Come, doctor, I must see you in the parlor."
"Can I do anything?" asked Miss Clopsey, rising. "How dreadful! Shall I go for hot water?"
"Oh, don't be alarmed," said Miss Panney, hurrying the amazed doctor out of the room; "it is chronic. He will be back in no time."
Miss Clopsey, left alone in the office, sank back in her chair.
"Chronic by jerks," she sighed; "there can be few things worse than that; and at her age, too!"
"What can be the matter?" asked the doctor, as the two stood in the parlor.
"It is an idea," said Miss Panney; "you cannot think with what violence it seized me. Doctor, what became of that book you wrote on the 'Diagnosis of Sympathy'?"
The doctor opened his eyes in astonishment.
"Nothing has become of it. It has been in my desk for two years. I have not had time even to copy it."
"And of course your writing could not be trusted to a printer. Now what you should do is this: employ that Drane girl to copy your manuscript. She can do it here, and if she comes to a word she cannot make out, she can ask you. That will keep her going until autumn, and by that time we can get her some scholars."
"Miss Panney," said the doctor, "are you going crazy? I cannot afford charity on that scale."
"Charity!" repeated the old lady, sarcastically. "A pretty word to use. By that sort of charity you give yourself one of the greatest of earthly blessings, in the shape of La Fleur, and you get out a book which will certainly be a benefit to the world, and will, I believe, bring you fame and profit. And you are frightened by the paltry sum that will be necessary to pay the board of the girl and her mother for perhaps two months. Now do not condemn this plan until you have had time to consider it. Go back to your Clopsey; I am going to find Mrs. Tolbridge and talk to her."
When Dora Bannister had gone away in Miss Panney's phaeton, Miriam walked gravely into the house, followed by her brother.
"Now," said she, "I must go to work in earnest."
"Work!" exclaimed Ralph. "I think you have been working a good deal harder than you ought to work, and certainly a good deal harder than I intend you to work. As soon as he has had his dinner, Mike shall take the wagon, and go after the woman Miss Panney told us of."
"Of course I have been working," said Miriam, "but while Dora Bannister was here, what we did was not like straightforward work; it all seemed to mean something that was not just plain housekeeping. For one thing, the dough I intended to bake into bread was nearly all used up in making those rolls that Dora worked up into such pretty shapes; and now, if the new woman comes, I shall not have another chance to try my hand at making bread until she leaves us, for I am not going to do anything of the sort with a servant watching me. And there are all those raspberries we picked this morning. I am sure I do not know what to do with them, for there are ever so many more than we shall want to eat with cream. What was it, Ralph, that you said you liked, made of raspberries?"
Ralph looked a little puzzled.
"I think," he said, "it must have been something of the tart order. What did I tell you?"
"You did not tell me anything," said Miriam, "and I do not believe that tarts are ever made of raspberries. Dora Bannister said she wanted to cook something for you that you told her you liked, but as you have forgotten what it was, I suppose it does not make much difference now."
Ralph had said so many things to Dora that he could not remember what remark he had made about cooked raspberries; but it delighted him to think that, whatever it was, Dora had wished to make it for him.
After dinner Miriam went up to her room, where upon the bed lay Judith Pacewalk's teaberry gown. She took off her own school-girl dress, and put on the pink gown. It was the first time she had ever worn the clothes of a woman. When she had attired herself in the silken robe which had been so fatal to the fortunes and life of Judith Pacewalk, it had been slipped on in masquerade fashion, debased from its high position to a mere protection from spilt milk. Miriam had thought of the purple silk when Miss Panney was telling her story, and had said to herself that if the stall in the cow-stable had been ever so much darker and dirtier, and if the milk stains had been more and bigger, the career of that robe would have ended all the more justly.
The teaberry gown was too long for Miriam, and too large in every way. She knew that for herself; but hearing Ralph's footsteps outside, she had a longing to know what he would say on the subject, so, holding up her skirt to keep herself from tripping, she ran downstairs and called him into the big hall.
"How do you like me in the teaberry gown?" she asked.
Without a thought of any figurative significance connected with the dress, Ralph only saw that it was as unsuitable to his sister as it had been well suited to Dora.
"You will have to grow a good deal bigger and older before you are able to fill that gown, my little one," he said.
"That is not the way I do things," said Miriam, severely. "I shall make the gown fit me."
Ralph was about to say that it would be a pity to cut down and alter that picturesque piece of old-fashioned attire into an ordinary garment, and that it would be well to keep it as a family relic, or to give it away to some one who could wear it as it was, but Miriam's manner assured him that she was extremely sensitive on the subject of this gown, and he considered it wise to offer no further opinion about it. So he went about his affairs, and Miriam, having resumed her ordinary dress, went out with her cook-book to a bench under a tree on the lawn. She never stayed in the house when it was possible to be out of doors.
"I wish I could find out," she said to herself, "what Dora Bannister intended to make for Ralph out of raspberries. Whatever it is, I know I can make it just as well, and I want to do it all myself before the new cook comes. It could not have been jam," she said, as she turned over the leaves; "for Ralph does not care much for jam, and he would not have told her he liked that. And then there is jelly; but it must take a long time to make jelly, and I do not believe she would undertake to give him that for dinner, made from raspberries picked this morning. Besides, I cannot imagine Ralph saying he wanted jelly for his dinner. Well, well!" she exclaimed aloud, as she stopped to read a recipe, "they do make tarts out of raspberries! That must have been it, for Ralph is desperately fond of every kind of pastry. I will go into the house this minute, and make him some raspberry tarts. We shall have them for supper, even if they give him the nightmare. I am not going to have him say again that he wished the new cook, as he kept calling Dora Bannister, had stayed a little longer."
Alas! at dinner time Ralph had been guilty of that indiscretion. Without exactly knowing it, he had missed in the meal a certain very pleasant element, which had been put into the supper and breakfast by Dora's desire to gratify his especial tastes. While he missed their visitor in many other ways, he alluded to her premature departure only in connection with their domestic affairs.
But so far as Miriam was concerned, he could have done nothing worse than this. To have heard her brother say that Dora Bannister was the most lovely girl he had ever seen, and that he was filled with grief at losing the delights of her society, might have been disagreeable to her, or it might not. But to have him even in the lightest way intimate that her housekeeping was preferable to that of his own sister nettled her self-esteem.
"I will show him," she said, "that he is mistaken."
In the pleasant coolness of the great barn, Ralph stretched himself on a pile of new-made hay to think. He was a farmer, and he intended to try to be a good farmer, and he knew that good farmers, during working hours, do not lie down on piles of hay to think. But notwithstanding that, in this hay-scented solitude, looking out of the great door upon the quiet landscape with the white clouds floating over it, he thought of Dora. He had been thinking of her in all sorts of irregular and disjointed ways ever since he had risen in the morning; but now he wished to think definitely, and lay down here for that purpose. One cannot think definitely and single-mindedly when engaged in farm work, especially if he sometimes finds himself a little awkward at said work and is bothered by it.
Whenever he could do it, Ralph Haverley liked to get things clear and straightforward in his mind. He had applied this rule to all matters of his former business, and he now applied it to the affairs of his present estate. But how much more important was it to apply the rules to Dora Bannister! Nothing had ever put his mind into a condition less clear and straightforward than the visit of that young lady. The main point to be decided upon was: what should he do about seeing her again? He was filled by an all-pervading desire to do that; but how should he set about it? The simplest plan would be to go and see her; but if he did so, he knew he ought to take his sister with him, and he had no reason to believe that Miriam would be in any hurry to return Miss Bannister's visit. If he had been acquainted with the brother, the case would have been different, but that gentleman had not yet called upon him.
Having thought some time on this subject, Ralph sat upright, and rearranged his reflections.
"Why is it," he said to himself, "that I am so anxious to see her again, and to see her as soon as possible?"
To the solution of this question, Ralph applied the full force of his intellectual powers. The conclusion that came to him after about six seconds of deliberation was not well defined, but it indicated that if almost any young man had had in his house—actually living with him and taking part in his household affairs—an unusually handsome young woman, who, not only by her appearance, but by her gentle and thoughtful desire to adapt herself to the tastes and circumstances of himself and his sister, seemed to belong in the place into which she had so suddenly dropped, that young man would naturally want to see that young woman just as soon as he could. This would be so in any similar case, and there was no use in trying to find out why it was so in this case.
He rose to his feet, and at that moment he heard Miriam calling to him.
"Ralph," she said, running into the barn, "I have been looking all over for you. The new woman cannot come to-day."
"I do not see why you should appear so delighted about it," said Ralph;"I am very sorry to hear it."
"And I am not," replied Miriam. "There are some things I want to do before she comes, and I am very glad to have the chance. Mike brought back word from her that if you send the wagon in the cool of the morning, she will come over with her trunk."
"You are a funny girl," said Ralph, "to be actually pleased at the prospect of cooking and doing housework a little longer." And as he said that, he congratulated himself that his sister had not had the chance of thinking him a funny fellow for lying stretched on the hay when he ought to have been at work.
Miriam was now in good spirits again. She walked to the great open window, and, leaning on the bar, looked out.
"What a lovely air," she said, and then she turned to her brother. "It is nice to have visitors, and to have plenty of people to do your work, but it is a hundred times jollier for just us two to be here by ourselves. Don't you think so, Ralph?" And, without waiting for her brother's answer, she went on. "You see, we can do whatever we please. We can be as free as anything—as free as cats. Here, puss, puss," she called to the gray barn cat in the yard below. "No, she will not even look at me. Cats are the freest creatures in the world; they will not come to you if they do not want to. If you call your dog, he feels that he has to come to you. Ralph, do you know I think it is the most absurd thing in the world that in a place like this we should have no dog."
"I have been waiting for somebody to give me one," said Ralph, taking up a pitchfork and preparing to throw some hay into the stable below.
"That will be the nicest way of getting one," said Miriam, as she came and stood by him, and watched him thrust the hay into the yawning hole. "We do not want a dog that people are willing to sell. We want one that is the friend of the family, and which the owners are obliged to part with because they are going to Europe, or something of that sort. Such a dog we should prize. Don't you think so, Ralph?"
"Yes," said he, and went on taking up forkloads of hay and thrusting them into the hole. He was wondering if this were a good time to tell Miriam that that very morning Dora Bannister had been talking about there being no dog at Cobhurst, and had asked him if he would like to have one; for if he would, she had a very handsome black setter, which had been given to her when it was a little puppy, and of which she was very fond, but which had now grown too big and lively to be cooped up in the yard of their house. He had said that he would be charmed to have the dog, and had intended to tell Miriam about it, but now a most excellent opportunity had come to do so, he hesitated. Miriam's soul did not seem to incline toward their late visitor, and perhaps she might not care for a gift from her. It might be better to wait awhile. Then there came a happy thought to Ralph; here was a good reason for going to see Dora. It would be no more than polite to take an interest in the animal which had been offered him, and even if he did not immediately bring it to Cobhurst, he could go and look at it. Miriam now returned to the house, leaving her brother pondering over the question whether or not the next morning would be too soon to go and look at the dog.
The sun had set, and Ralph, having finished his day's work, and having helped his sister as much as she and Mike would let him, sat on the piazza, gazing between the tall pillars upon the evening landscape, and still trying to decide whether or not it would be out of the way to go the next morning to Dora Bannister. The evening light grew less and less, and Ralph's healthy instincts drew his mind from thoughts of Dora to thoughts of supper. It certainly was very late for the evening meal, but he would not worry Miriam with any signs of impatience. That would be unkind indeed, when she was slaving away in the kitchen, while he sat here enjoying the evening coolness.
In a few minutes he heard his sister's step in the hall, and then a sob. He had scarcely time to turn, when Miriam ran out, and threw herself down on the wide seat beside him. Her face, as he could see it in the dim light, was one of despair, and as sob after sob broke from her, tears ran down her cheeks. Tenderly he put his arm around her and urged her to tell him what had happened.
"Oh, Ralph," she sobbed, "it is very hard, but I know it is true. I have been just filled with vanity and pride, and after all I am nothing like as good as she is, nor as good as anybody, and the best I can do is to go back to school."
"What is the matter?" exclaimed Ralph. "You poor little thing, how came you to be so troubled?"
Miriam gave a long sigh and dropped her head on her brother's shoulder.
"Oh, Ralph," she said, "they are six inches high."
"What are?" cried Ralph, in great amazement.
"The tarts," she said; "the raspberry tarts I was making for you, because you like them, and because Dora Bannister was going to make them for you, and I determined that I could do it just as well as she could, and that I would do it and that you would not have to miss her for anything. But it is of no use; I cannot do things as well as she can, and those tarts are not like tarts at all; they are like chimneys."
"I expect they are very good indeed. Now do not drop another tear, and let us go in and eat them."
"No," said Miriam, "they are not good. I know what is the matter with them. I have found out that I have no more idea of making pie crust than I have about the nebulous part of astronomy, and that I never could comprehend. I wanted to make the lightest, puffiest pastry that was possible, and I used some self-raising flour, the kind that has the yeast ground up with it, and when I put those tarts in the oven to bake, they just rose up, and rose up, until I thought they would reach up the chimney. They are perfectly horrid."
Ralph sprang to his feet, and lifted his sister from her seat. "Come along, little one," he cried, "and I shall judge for myself what sort of a pastry-cook you are."
"The pigs shall judge that," said Miriam, who had now dried her eyes, "but fortunately there are other things to eat."
The tarts, indeed, were wonderful things to look at, resembling, as Miriam had said, a plateful of little chimneys, with a sort of swallow's nest of jam at the top, but Ralph did not laugh at them.
"Wait until their turn comes," said Ralph, "and I will give my opinion about them."
When he had finished the substantial part of the meal, he drew the plate of tarts toward him.
"I will show you how to eat the Cobhurst tart. You cut it down from top to bottom: then you lay the two sections on their rounded sides: then you get a lot more of jam, which I see you have on the side table, and you spread the cut surfaces with it: then you put it together as it was before, and slice it along its shorter diameter. Good?" said he; "they are delicious."
Miriam took a piece. "It is good enough," she said, "but it is not a tart. If Dora Bannister had made them, they would have been real tarts."
"It is very well I said nothing about the dog," thought Ralph; and then he said aloud, "It is not Dora Bannister that we have to consider; it is Molly Tooney. She is to save you from the tears and perplexities of flour and yeast, and to make you the happy little lady of the house that you were before the wicked Phoebe went away. But one thing I insist upon: I want the rest of those tarts for my breakfast."
Miriam looked at her brother with a smile that showed her storm was over.
"You are eating those things, dear Ralph," she said, "because I made them, and that is the only good thing about them."
In a small room at the back of Dr. Tolbridge's house there sat a young woman by the window, writing. This was Cicely Drane; and although it was not yet ten days since Miss Panney broached her plan of the employment of Miss Drane as the doctor's secretary, or rather copyist, here she was, hard at work, and she had been for two days.
The window opened upon the garden, and in the beds were a great many bright and interesting flowers, but paying no heed to these, Cicely gave her whole attention to her task, which, indeed, was not an easy one. With knitted brows she bent over the manuscript of the "Diagnosis of Sympathy," and having deciphered a line or two, she wrote the words in a fair hand on a broad sheet before her. Then she returned to the study of the doctor's caligraphy, and copied a little more of it, but the proportion of the time she gave to the deciphering of the original manuscript to that occupied in writing the words in her own hand was about as ten is to one. An hour had elapsed since she had begun to write on the page, which she had not yet filled.
Miss Cicely Drane was a small person, nearing her twenty-second year. She had handsome gray eyes, tastefully arranged brown hair, and a vivacious and pleasing face. Her hands were small, her feet were small, and she did not look as if she weighed a hundred pounds, although, in fact, her weight was considerably more than that. Her dress was a simple one, on which a great deal of thought had been employed to make it becoming.
For a longer time than usual she now bent over the doctor's manuscript, endeavoring to resolve a portion of it into comprehensible words. Then she held up the page to the light, replaced it on the table, stood up and looked at it, and finally sat down again, her elbows on the paper, and her tapering fingers in the little brown curls at the sides of her head. Presently she raised her head, with a sigh. "It is of no use," she said. "I must go and ask him what this means; that is, if he is at home."
With the page in her hand, she went to the office door, and knocked.
"Come in," said Dr. Tolbridge.
Miss Drane entered; the doctor was alone, but he had his hat in his hand and was just going out.
"I am glad I caught you," said she, "for there is a part of this page in which I can see no meaning."
"What is it?" said the doctor. "Read it."
Slowly and distinctly she read:—
"'The cropsticks of flamingo bicrastus quack.'"
The doctor frowned, laid his hat on the table, and seating himself took the paper from Cicely Drane.
"This is strange," said he. "It does seem to be 'cropsticks of flamingo,' but what can that mean?"
"That is what I came to ask you," said she. "I have been puzzling over it a good while, and I supposed, of course, you would know what it is."
"But I do not," said the doctor. "It is often very hard for me to read my own writing, and this was written two years ago. You can leave this sheet with me, and this evening I will look over it and try to make something out of it."
Cicely Drane was methodical in her ways; she could not properly go on with the rest of her work without this page, and so she told the doctor.
"Oh, never mind any more work for today," said he. "It is after four o'clock now, and you ought to go out and get a little of this pleasant sunshine. By the way, how do you like this new business?"
"I should like it very well," said Cicely, as she stood by the table, "if I could get on faster with it, but I work so very, very slowly. I made a calculation this morning, that if I work at the same rate that I have been working since I came here, it will take me thirteen years and eleven months to copy your manuscript."
The doctor laughed. "If a child should walk to school," he said, "at the same rate of speed that he takes his first toddling step on the nursery floor, it might take him about thirteen years to get there. That is, if his school were at the average distance. You will get on fast enough when you become acquainted with my writing."
She was on the point of saying that surely he had had time to get acquainted with it, and yet he could not read it; but she considered that she did not yet know the doctor well enough for that.
The doctor rose and took up his hat; then he suddenly turned toward Miss Drane and said, "La Fleur, our cook, came to speak to me this morning about your mother. She says she thinks that you are not well lodged; that the street is in the hottest part of the town, and that Mrs. Drane's health will suffer if you stay there. Does your mother object to your present quarters?"
Cicely, who had been half way to the door, now came back and stood by the table.
"Mother never objects to anything," she said. "She thinks our rooms are very neat and comfortable, and that Mrs. Brinkly is a kind landlady, but she has complained a great deal of the heat. You know our house was very airy."
"I am sorry," said the doctor, "that Mrs. Brinkly's house is not likely to prove pleasant. It is in a closely built portion of the town, but it seemed the only place where we could find suitable accommodations for your mother and you."
"Oh, it is a nice place," exclaimed Cicely, "and I am sure we shall like it, except in hot weather, such as we are having now. I have no doubt we shall get used to it after a little while."
"La Fleur does not think so," said the doctor. "She is very much dissatisfied with the Brinkly establishment. I think I saw signs of mental disturbance in our luncheon to-day."
Cicely laughed. She was a girl who was pleasant to look at when she laughed, for her features accommodated themselves so naturally to mirthful expression.
"It is almost funny," she said, "to see how fond La Fleur is of mother. She lived with us less than a year, and yet one might suppose she had always been a servant of the family. I think one reason for her feeling is that mother never does anything. You know she has never been used to do anything, and of late years she has not been well enough. La Fleur likes all that; she thinks it is a mark of high degree. She told me once that my mother was a lady who was born to be served, and who ought not to be allowed to serve herself."
"She does not seem to object to your working," remarked the doctor.
"I am sure she does not like that, but then she considers it a thing that cannot be helped. You know," continued Cicely, with a smile, "she is not so particular about me, for I have some trade blood. Father's father was a merchant."
"So you are only a grade aristocrat," said the doctor; "but I must go. I will talk to Mrs. Tolbridge about this affair of lodgings."
That evening Mrs. Tolbridge and the doctor held a conference in regard to the quarters of the Dranes.
"I think La Fleur concerns herself entirely too much in the matter," said the lady. "She first came to me, and then she went to you. You have done a good deal for Mrs. Drane in giving her daughter employment, and we cannot be expected to attend to her every need. I do not consider Mrs. Brinkly's house a very pleasant one in hot weather, and I would be glad to do anything I could to establish them more pleasantly, but I know of nothing to do, at least at present; and then you say they have not complained. From what I have seen of Mrs. Drane, I think she is a very sensible woman, and under the circumstances probably expects some discomforts."
"But that is not all that is to be considered," said her husband. "La Fleur's dissatisfaction, which is very evident, must be taken into the question. She has a scheming mind. Before she left this morning she asked me if I thought a little house could be gotten outside the town, for a moderate rent. I believe she would not hesitate to take such a house, and board and lodge the Dranes herself."
"Doctor!" exclaimed Mrs. Tolbridge, "whatever happens, I hope we are not going to be the slaves of a cook."
The doctor laughed.
"Whatever happens," he said, "we are always that. All we can do is to try and be the slaves of a good one."
"I am not altogether sure that that is the right way to look at it," said Mrs. Tolbridge; and then she went on with her sewing, not caring to expatiate on the subject. Her husband appreciated only the advantages of La Fleur, but she knew something of her disadvantages. The work on which she was engaged at that moment would have been done by the maid, had not that young woman's services been so frequently required of late by the autocrat of the kitchen.
The doctor sat silent for a few minutes. He had a kindly feeling for Mrs. Drane, and was willing to do all he could for her, but his thoughts were now principally occupied with plans for the continuance of good living in his own home.
"I suppose it would not be practicable," he said presently, "to invite them to stay with us during the heated term."
Mrs. Tolbridge dropped her work into her lap.
"That is not to be thought of for a moment," she said. "We have no room for them, unless we give up having any more friends this summer; and besides that, you would see La Fleur, with the other servants at her heels, devoting herself to the gratification of every want and notion of Mrs. Drane, and thinking no more of me than if I were a chair in a corner."
"We shall not have that," said the doctor, rising, and placing his hand on his wife's head. "You may be sure we shall not have that. And now I will go and get a bit of my handwriting, and see if you can help me decipher it."
He left the room, but in an instant returned.
"A happy thought has just struck me!" he exclaimed. "I wonder if those young Haverley people would take Mrs. Drane into their house for the rest of the summer? It would be an excellent thing for them, for their household needs the presence of an elderly person, and I am sure that no one could be quieter, or more pleasant, and less troublesome, than Mrs. Drane would be. What do you think of that idea?"
Mrs. Tolbridge looked up approvingly.
"It is not a bad one," she said; "but what would the daughter do? She could not come into town every day to do your work. It is too long a walk for her, and she could not afford a conveyance."
"No," said the doctor, "of course she could not go back and forwards every day, but it would not be necessary. She could take the work out there and do it as well as here, and she could come in now and then, when a chance offered, and ask me about the hard words, for which she could leave blanks. Or, if I happen to be in the neighborhood, I could stop in there and see how she was getting on. I would much rather arrange the business in that way, than have her pop into my office at any moment to ask me about my illegible words."
"I should think the work could be done just as well out of the house as in it," said the doctor's wife, who would be willing to have again the use of the little room that she had cheerfully given up to the copyist of her husband's book, which she, quite as earnestly as Miss Panney, desired to be given to the world.
"The first thing to do," said she, "is to make them acquainted. At first the Haverleys would not be likely to favor the plan. They no doubt consider themselves sufficient company for each other, and although a slight addition to their income would probably be of advantage, I think they are too young and unpractical to care much about that."
"How would it do to have the Dranes and the Haverleys here, and give them a first-class La Fleur dinner?" asked the doctor.
"I do not like that," said his wife. "The intention would be too obvious.The thing should be done more naturally."
"Well," said the doctor, "I wish we had Miss Panney here. She has a great capacity for rearranging and simplifying the circumstances of a complicated case."
Mrs. Tolbridge made no answer, but very intently examined her sewing.
"But if we can think of no deeply ingenious plan," continued the doctor, "we will go about it in a straightforward way. I will see Ralph Haverley, and if I can win him over to the idea I will let him talk to his sister. He can do it better than we can. If they utterly reject the whole scheme, we will wait a week or so, and propose it again, just as if we had never done it before. I have found this plan work very well with persons who, on account of youth, or some other reason, are given to resentment of suggestions and to quick decisions. When a rejected proposition is laid before them a second time, the disposition to resent has lost its force, and they are as likely to accept it as not."
"You are right," said Mrs. Tolbridge, "for I have tried that plan with you."
The doctor looked at her and laughed.
"It is astonishing," he exclaimed, "what coincidences we meet with in this world," and with that he left the room.
As soon as her husband had gone, Mrs. Tolbridge leaned back in her chair and laughed quietly.
"To think of asking Miss Panney to aid in a plan like that!" she said to herself. "Why, when the old lady hears of it she will blaze like fury. To send that pretty Cicely to live in the house for which she herself has selected a mistress, will seem to her like high treason. But the arrangement suits me perfectly, and I can only hope that Miss Panney may not hear of it until everything is settled."
The more Dr. Tolbridge thought of the plan to establish Mrs. and Miss Drane, for a time, at Cobhurst, the better he liked it. Not only did he think the arrangement would be a desirable one on the Drane side, but also on the Haverley side. From the first, he had taken a lively interest in Miriam, and he considered that her life of responsibility and independence in that lonely household was as likely to warp her mind in some directions as it was to expand it in others. Suitable companionship would be a great advantage to her in this regard, and he fancied that Cicely Drane would be as congenial and helpful a chum, and Mrs. Drane as unobjectionable a matronly adviser, as could be found. If the plan suited all concerned, it might perhaps be continued beyond the summer. He would see Ralph as soon as possible.
Having received permission to stop work at four o'clock on a beautiful summer afternoon, Cicely Drane put away her papers and walked rapidly home. She found her mother on Mrs. Brinkly's front piazza, fanning herself vigorously and watching some children, who, on the other side of the narrow street, were feeding a tethered goat with clippings from a newspaper.
After a few words to explain her early return, Cicely went up to her own room, and took from a drawer a little pocketbook, and opening it, examined the money contained therein. Apparently satisfied with the result, she went downstairs, wallet in hand.
"Mother," said she, "you must find it dreadfully hot and stupid here, and as this is a bit of a holiday, I intend we shall take a drive."
Mrs. Drane was about to offer some sort of economic objection, but before she could do so, Cicely was out of the little front yard, and hurrying toward the station, where there were always vehicles to be hired.
She engaged the man who had the best-looking horse, and in a little open phaeton, a good deal the worse for wear, she returned to her mother.
Andy Griffing, the driver, was a grizzled little man with twinkling eyes and a cheery air that seemed to indicate that an afternoon drive was as much a novelty and pleasure to him as it could possibly be to any two ladies; which was odd, considering that for the last forty years Andy had been almost constantly engaged in taking morning, afternoon, evening, and night drives.
The only direction given him by Cicely was to take them along the prettiest country roads that he knew of, and this suited him well, for he not only considered himself a good judge of scenery, but he knew which roads were easiest for his horse.
As they travelled leisurely along, the ladies enjoying the air, the fields, the sweet summer smells, the stretches of woods, the blue and white sky, and everything that goes to make a perfect summer afternoon. Andy endeavored to add to their pleasure by giving them information regarding the inhabitants of the various dwellings they passed.
"That whitish house back there among the trees," said he, "with the green blinds, is called the Witton place. The Wittons themselves are nuthin' out o' the common; but there's an old lady lives there with 'em, who if you ever meet, you'll know agin, if you see her agin. Her name's Panney,—Miss Panney,—and she's a one-er. What she don't know about me, I don't know, and what she won't know about you, three days after she gits acquainted with you, you don't know. That's the kind of a person Miss Panney is. There's a lot of very nice people, some rich and some poor, and some queer and some not quite so queer, that lives in and around Thorbury, and if you like it at Mrs. Brinkly's and conclude to stay there any length of time, I don't doubt you'll git acquainted with a good many of 'em; but take my word for it, you'll never meet anybody who can go ahead of Miss Panney in the way of turnin' up unexpected. I once had a sick hoss, who couldn't do much more than stand up, but I had to drive him one day, 'cause my other one was hired out. 'Now' says I, as I drew out the stable, 'if I can get around town this mornin' without meetin' Miss Panney, I think old Bob can do my work, and to-morrow I'll turn him out to grass.' And as I went around the first corner, there was Miss Panney a drivin' her roan mare. She pulled up when she seed me, and she calls out, 'Andy, what's the matter with that hoss?' I told her he was a little under the weather, but I had to use him that day, 'cause my other hoss was out. Then she got straight out of that phaeton she drives in, and come up to my hoss, and says she, 'Andy, you ought to be ashamed of yourself to make a hoss work when he is in a condition like that. Take him right back to your stable, or I'll have you up before a justice.' 'Now look here, Miss Panney,' says I, 'which is the best, for a hoss to jog a little round town when he ain't feeling quite well, or for a man to sit idle on his front doorstep and see his family starve?' 'Now, Andy,' says she, 'is that the case with you?' and havin' brought up the pint myself, I was obliged to say that it was. 'Very good, then,' said she, and she took her roan mare by the head and led it up to the curbstone. 'Now then,' said she, 'you can take your hoss out of the cab and put this hoss in, and you can drive her till your hoss gets well, and durin' that time I'll walk.'
"Well, of course I didn't do that, and I took my hoss back to the stable, and my family didn't starve nuther; but I just tell you this to show you what sort of a woman Miss Panney is."
"I should think she was a very estimable person," said Mrs. Drane.
"Oh, there's nothin' the matter with her estimation," said Andy. "That's level enough. I only told you that to show you how you can always expect her to turn up unexpected."
"Mrs. Brinkly spoke of Miss Panney," said Cicely; "she said that she was the first one to come and see her about rooms for us."
"That was certainly very kind," said Mrs. Drane, "considering that she does not know us at all, except through Dr. Tolbridge. I remember his speaking of her."
"That place over there," said Andy, "you can jest see the tops of the chimneys, that's called Cobhurst; that's where old Matthias Butterwood used to live. It was an awful big house for one man, but he was queer. There's nobody livin' there now but two young people, sort of temporary, I guess, though the place belongs to 'em. I don't think they are any too well off. They don't give us hack-drivers much custom, never havin' any friends comin' or goin', or trunks or anything. He's got no other business, they say, and don't know no more about farmin' than a potato knows about preachin'. There's nothin' on the place that amounts to anything except the barn. There's a wonderful barn there, that old Butterwood spent nobody knows how much money on, and he a bachelor. You can't see the barn from here, but I'll drive you where you can get a good look at it."
In a few minutes, he made a turn, and whipped up his horse to a better speed, and before Mrs. Drane and her daughter could comprehend the state of affairs, they were rolling over a not very well kept private road, and approaching the front of a house.
"Where are you going, driver?" exclaimed Mrs. Drane, leaning forward in astonishment.
Andy turned his beaming countenance upon her, and flourished his whip.
"Oh, I'm just goin' to drive round the side of the house," he said; "at the back there's a little knoll where we can stop, and you can see the whole of the barn with the three ways of gittin' into it, one for each story." At that moment they rolled past the front piazza on which were Miriam and Ralph, gazing at them in surprise. The latter had risen when he had heard the approaching carriage, supposing they were to have visitors. But as the vehicle passed the door he looked at his sister in amazement.
"It can't be," said he, "that those people have come to visit Mike?"
"Or Molly Tooney?" said Miriam.
As for Mrs. Drane and Cicely, they were shocked. They had never been in the habit of driving into private grounds for the sake of seeing what might be there to see, and Mrs. Drane sharply ordered the driver to stop.
"What do you mean," said she, "by bringing us in here?"
"Oh, that's nuthin'," said Andy, with a genial grin; "they won't mind your comin' in to look at the barn. I've druv lots of people in here to look at that barn, though, to be sure, not since these young people has been livin' here, but they won't mind it an eighth of an inch."
"I shall get out and apologize," said Mrs. Drane, "for this shameful intrusion, and then you must drive us out of the grounds immediately. We do not wish to stop to look at anything," and with this she stepped from the little phaeton and walked back to the piazza.
Stopping at the bottom of the steps, she saluted the brother and sister, whose faces showed that they were in need of some sort of explanation of her arrival at their domestic threshold.
In a few words she explained how the carriage had happened to enter the grounds, and hoped that they would consider that the impropriety was due entirely to the driver, and not to any desire on their part to intrude themselves on private property for the sake of sight-seeing. Ralph and Miriam were both pleased with the words and manner of this exceedingly pleasant-looking lady.
"I beg that you will not consider at all that you have intruded," saidRalph. "If there is anything on our place that you would care to look at,I hope that you will do so."
"It was only the barn," said Mrs. Drane, with a smile. "The man told us it was a peculiar building, but I supposed we could see it without entering your place. We will trespass no longer."
Ralph went down the steps, and Miriam followed.
"Oh, you are perfectly welcome to look at the barn as much as you wish to," he said. "In fact, we are rather proud to find that this is anything of a show place. If the other lady will alight, I will be pleased to have you walk into the barn. The door of the upper floor is open, and there is a very fine view from the back."
Mrs. Drane smiled.
"You are very good indeed," she said, "to treat intrusive strangers with such kindness, but I shall be glad to have you know that we are not mere tourists. We are, at present, residents of Thorbury. I am Mrs. Drane, and my daughter is engaged in assisting Dr. Tolbridge in some literary work."
"If you are friends of Dr. Tolbridge," said Ralph, "you are more than welcome to see whatever there is to see on this place. The doctor is one of our best friends. If you like, I will show you the barn, and perhaps my sister will come with us."
Miriam, who for a week or more had been beset by the very unusual desire that she would like to see somebody and speak to somebody who did not live at Cobhurst, willingly agreed to assist in escorting the strangers, and Cicely having joined the group, they all walked toward the barn.
There were no self-introductions, Ralph merely acting as cicerone, and Miriam bringing up the rear in the character of occasional commentator. Mrs. Drane had accepted the young gentleman's invitation because she felt that the most polite thing to do under the circumstances was to gratify his courteous desire to put them at their ease, and, being a lover of fine scenery, she was well rewarded by the view from the great window.
The pride of possession began to glow a little within Ralph as he pointed out the features of this castle-like barn. Mrs. Drane agreed to his proposition to descend to the second floor. But as these two were going down the broad stairway, Cicely drew back, and suddenly turning, addressed Miriam.
"I have been wanting to ask a great many questions," she said, "but I have felt ashamed to do it. I have nearly always lived in the country, but I know hardly anything about barns and cows and stables and hay and all that. Do the hens lay their eggs up there in your hay?"
Miriam smiled gravely.
"It is very hard to find out," she said, "where they do lay their eggs. Some days we do not get any at all, though I suppose they lay them, just the same. There is a henhouse, but they never go in there."
Cicely moved toward the stairway, and then she stopped; she cast her eyes toward the mass of hay in the mow above, and then she gave a little sigh. Miriam looked at her and understood her perfectly, moreover she pitied her.
"How is it," said she as they went down the stairs, "that you lived in the country, and do not know about country things?"
"We lived in suburbs," she said. "I think suburbs are horrible; they are neither one thing nor the other. We had a lawn and shade trees, and a croquet ground, and a tennis court, but we bought our milk and eggs and most of our vegetables. There isn't any real country in all that, you know. I was never in a haymow in my life. All I know about that sort of thing is from books."
When, with many thanks for the courtesies offered them, Mrs. Drane and her daughter had driven away, Miriam sat by herself on the piazza and thought. She had a good deal of time, now, to think, for Molly Tooney was a far more efficient servant than Phoebe had been, and although her brother gave her as much of his time as he could, she was of necessity left a good deal to herself.
She began by thinking what an exceedingly gentlemanly man her brother was; in his ordinary working clothes he had been as much at his ease with those ladies as though he had been dressed in a city costume, which, however, would not have been nearly so becoming to him as his loose flannel shirt and broad straw hat. She then began to regret that her mind worked so slowly. If it had been quicker to act, she would have asked that young lady to come some day and go up in the haymow with her. It would be a positive charity to give a girl with longings, such as she saw that one had, a chance of knowing what real country life was. It would be pleasant to show things to a girl who really wanted to know about them. From this she began to think of Dora Bannister. Dora was a nice girl, but Miriam could not think of her as one to whom she could show or tell very much; Dora liked to do the showing and telling herself.
"I truly believe," said Miriam to herself, and a slight flush came on her face, "that if she could have done it, she would have liked to stay here a week, and wear the teaberry gown all the time and direct everything,—although, of course, I would never have allowed that." With a little contraction of the brows, she went into the hall, where she heard her brother's step.
"It bothers the head off of me," said Molly Tooney to Mike, as she sat eating her supper in the Cobhurst kitchen, "to try to foind out what thim two upstairs is loike, anyway, 'specially her. I've been here nigh onto two weeks, now, and I don't know her no betther than when I fust come. For the life of me I can't make out whether she's a gal woman or a woman gal. Sometimes she's one and sometimes t'other. And then there's he. Why didn't he marry and settle before he took a house to himself? And in the two Sundays I've been here, nather of thim's been to church. If they knowed what was becomin' to thim, they'd behave like Christians, if they are heretics."
Mike sat at a little table in the corner of the kitchen with his back to Molly, eating his supper. He had enough of the Southern negro in him to make him dislike to eat with white people or to turn his face toward anybody while partaking of his meals. But he also had enough of a son of Erin in him to make him willing to talk whenever he had a chance. Turning his head a little, he asked, "Now look a here, Molly; if a man's a heretic, how can he be a Christian?"
"There's two kinds of heretics," said Molly, filling her great tea-cup for the fourth time, and holding the teapot so that the last drop of the strong decoction should trickle into the cup; "Christian heretics and haythen heretics. You're one of the last koind yoursilf, Mike, for you never go nigh a church, except to whitewash the walls of it. And you'll never git no benefit to your own sowl, from Phoebe's boardin' the minister, nather. Take my word for that, Mike."
Mike allowed himself a sort of froggy laugh. "There's nobody gets no good out of that, but him," said he; "but you've got it crooked about their not goin' to church. They did go reg'lar at fust, but the gig's at the wheelwright's gettin' new shaf's."
"Gig, indeed!" ejaculated Molly. "No kirridge, but an auld gig! There's not much quality about thim two. I wouldn't be here working for the likes o' thim, if it was not for me wish to oblige Miss Panney, poor old woman as she's gittin' to be."
Mike shrewdly believed that it was due to Miss Panney's knowledge of some of Molly's misdeeds, and not to any desire to please the old lady, that the commands of the latter were law to the Irishwoman, but he would not say so.
"Kerridge or no kerridge," said he, "they're good 'nough quality for me, and I reckon I knows what quality is. They hain't got much money, that's sure, but there's lots of quality that ain't got money; and he's got sense, and that's better than money. When he fust come here, I jes' goes to him, and ses I, 'How's you goin' to run this farm, sir,—ramshackle or reg'lar?' He looked at me kinder bothered, and then I 'splained. 'Well,' said he, 'reg'lar will cost more money than I've got, and I reckon we'll have to run it ramshackle.' That's what we did, and we're gittin' along fust rate. He works and I work, and what we ain't got no time to do, we let stand jes' thar till we git time to 'tend to it. That's ramshackle. We don't spend no time on fancy fixin's, and not much money on nuthin'."
"That's jes' what I've been thinkin' mesilf," said Molly. "I don't see no signs of money bein' spint on this place nather for one thing or anuther."
"You don't always have to spend money to get craps," said Mike; "look at our corn and pertaters. They is fust rate, and when we sends our craps to market, there won't be much to take for 'spenses out of what we git."
"Craps!" said Molly, with a sneer. "If you hauls your weeds to market, it'll take more wagons than you can hire in this country, and thim's the only craps my oi has lit on yit."
This made Mike angry. He was, in general, a good-natured man, but he had a high opinion of himself as a farm manager, and on this point his feelings were very sensitive. As was usual with him when he lost his temper, he got up without a word and went out.
"Bedad!" said Molly, looking about her, "I wouldn't have sid that to him if I'd seed there wasn't no kindlin' sphlit."
As Mike walked toward his own house, he was surprised to see, entering a little-used gateway near the barn, a horse and carriage. It was now so dark he could not see who occupied it, and he stood wondering why it should enter that gateway, instead of coming by the main entrance. As he stood there, the equipage came slowly on, and presently stopped in front of his little house. By the time he reached it, Phoebe, his wife, had alighted, and was waiting for him.
"Reckon you is surprised to see me," said she, and then turning to the negro man who drove the shabby hired vehicle, she told him that he might go over to the barn and tie his horse, for she would not be ready to go back for some time. She then entered the house with Mike, and, a candle having been lighted, she explained her unexpected appearance. She had met Miss Dora Bannister, and that young lady had engaged her to go to Cobhurst and take a note to Miss Miriam.
"She tole me," said Phoebe, "that she had wrote two times already to Miss Miriam, and then, havin' suspected somethin', had gone to the pos'-office and found they was still dar. Don't your boss ever sen' to the pos'-office, Mike?"
"He went hisself every now an' then, till the gig was broke," said Mike, "but I don't believe he ever got nuthin', and I reckon they thought it was no use botherin' about sendin' me, special, in the wagon."
"Well, they're uncommon queer folks," said Phoebe. "I reckon they've got nobody to write to, or git letters from. Anyway, Miss Dora wanted her letter to git here, and so she says to me that if I'd take it, she'd pay the hire of a hack, and so, as I wanted to see you anyway, Mike, I 'greed quick enough."
Before delivering the letter with which she had been entrusted, Phoebe proceeded to attend to some personal business, which was to ask her husband to lend her five dollars.
"Bless my soul," said Mike, "I ain't got no five dollars. I ain't asked for no wages yit, and don't expect to, till the craps is sold."
"I can't wait for that!" exclaimed Phoebe; "I's got to have money to carry on the house."
"Whar's the money the preacher pays you?" asked her husband.
"Dat's a comin'," said Phoebe, "dat's a comin' all right. Thar's to be a special c'lection next Sunday mornin', and the money's goin' to pay the minister's board. I'm to git every cent what's owin' to me, and I reckon it'll take it all."
"He ain't paid you nuthin' yit, thin?"
"Not yit; there was another special c'lection had to be tuk up fust, but the next one's for me. Can't you go ask your boss for five dollars?"
"Oh, yes," said Mike, "he'll give it to me if I ask him. Look here, Phoebe, we might's well git all the good we kin out of five dollars, and I reckon I'll come to chu'ch next Sunday, and put the five dollars in the c'lection. I'll git the credit of givin' a big lot of money, and that'll set me up a long time wid the congregation, and you git the five dollars all the same."
"Mike," said Phoebe, solemnly, "don't you go and do dat; mind, I tell you, don't you do dat. You give me them five dollars, and jes' let that c'lection alone. No use you wearin' youself out a walkin' to chu'ch, and all the feedin' and milkin' to do besides."
Mike laughed. "I reckon you think five dollars in th' pahm of th' hand is better than a whole c'lection in the bush. I'll see th' boss before you go, and if he's got the money, he'll let me have it."
Satisfied on this point, Phoebe now declared that she must go and deliver her letter; but she first inquired how her husband was getting on, and how he was treated by Molly Tooney.
"I ain't got no use for that woman;" and he proceeded to tell his wife of the insult that had been passed on his crops.
"That's brazen impidence," said Phoebe, "and jes' like her. But look here, Mike, don't you quarrel with the cook. No matter what happens, don't you quarrel with the cook."
"I ain't goin' to quarrel with nobody," said Mike; "but if that Molly 'spects me to grease her wagon wheels for her, she's got hold of the wrong man. If she likes green wood for the kitchen fire, and fotchin' it mos' times for herself, that's her business, not mine."
"If you do that, Mike, she'll leave," said Phoebe.
Mike gave himself a general shrug.
"She can't leave," said he, "till Miss Panney tells her she kin."
Phoebe laughed and rose.
"Reckon I'll go in and see Miss Miriam," she said, "and while I'm doin' that you'd better ask the boss about the money."
Having delivered the letter, and having, with much suavity, inquired into the health and general condition of the Cobhurst family since she had walked off and left it to its own resources, and having given Miriam various points of information in regard to the Bannister and the Tolbridge families, Phoebe gracefully took leave of the young mistress of the house and proceeded to call upon the cook.
"Hi, Phoebe!" cried Molly, who was engaged in washing dishes, "how did you git here at this time o' night?"
"I'd have you know," said the visitor, with lofty dignity, "that my name is Mrs. Robinson, and if you want to know how I got here, I came in a kerridge."
"I didn't hear no kirridge drive up," said Molly.
"Humph!" said Mrs. Robinson, "I reckon I know which gate is proper for my kerridge to come in, and which gate is proper for the Bannister coachman to drive in. I suppose there is cooks that would drive up to the front door if the governor's kerridge was standin' there."
Molly looked at the colored woman, with a grin.
"You're on your high hoss, Mrs. Robinson," said she. "That's what comes o' boardin' the minister. That's lofty business, Mrs. Robinson, an' I expect you're afther gittin' rich. Is it the gilt-edged butter you give him for his ash-cakes?"
"A pusson that's pious," said Phoebe, "don't want to get rich onter a minister of the gospel—"
"Which would be wearin' on their hopes if they did," interrupted Molly.
"But I can tell you this," continued Phoebe, more sharply, "that it isn't as if I was a Catholic and boardin' a priest, and had to go on Wednesdays and confess back to him all the money he paid me on Tuesdays."
Molly laughed aloud. "We don't confess money, Mrs. Robinson, we confess sins; but perhaps you think money is a sin, and if that's so, this house is the innocentest place I ever lived in. Sit down, Mrs. Robinson, and be friendly. I want to ax you a question. Has thim two, upstairs, got any money? What made you pop off so sudden? Didn't they pay your wages?"
Phoebe seated herself on the edge of a chair, and sat up very straight. She felt that the answer to this question was a very important one. She herself cared nothing for the Haverleys, but Mike lived with them, and was their head man, and it was not consistent with her position among the members of the congregation and in the various societies to which she belonged, that her husband should be in the employ of poor and consequently unrespected people.
"My wages was paid, every cent," she said, "and as to their money, I can tell you one thing, that I heard him say to his sister with my own ears, that he was goin' to build a town on them meaders, with streets and chu'ches, and stores on the corners of the block, and a libr'y and a bank, and she said she wouldn't object if he left the trees standin' between the house and the meaders, so that they could see the steeples and nothin' else. And more than that, I can tell you," said Phoebe, warming as she spoke, "the Bannister family isn't and never was intimate with needy and no-count families, and nobody could be more sociable and friendly with this family than Miss Dora is, writin' to her four or five times a week, and as I said to Mike, not ten minutes ago, if Mr. Haverley and Miss Dora should git married, her money and his money would make this the finest place in the county, and I tol' him to mind an' play his cards well and stay here as butler or coachman—I didn't care which; and he said he would like coachman best, as he was used to hosses."
Now, considering that the patience of her own coachman must be pretty nearly worn out, and believing that what she had said would inure to her own reputation, and probably to Mike's benefit as well, and that its force might be impaired by any further discussion of the subject, Phoebe arose and took a dignified leave.
Molly stood some moments in reflection.
"Bedad," she said aloud, "to-morrer I'll clane thim lamp-chimbleys and swape the bidrooms."