“Our dear good Jack,” Cherry said warmly.
“Yes; but Maimie is clever, and Jack is not. And for a wife to have more brains than her husband is—well, not always a thing to be desired.”
“O mother, you to say that of Jack,” Cherry murmured reproachfully. And then we were interrupted.
It was almost dark by the time home was reached. Jack opened the door with his latch-key, and disappeared. Maimie had been walking with my husband, and they came in close after Cherry and me. We made our way straight into the sitting-room.
“Cherry, do pull up the blind,” I said, “We must have lights directly. I suppose supper will soon be ready. You told the girl to lay the table, did you not?”
“How do you do, Maimie?” a man’s voice said.
I don’t think I am given to screaming, but I did scream then. I was dreadfully startled, never dreaming that anybody was in the room. Cherry had just pulled up the blind, and happily she had presence of mind not to let it drop.
A stout man with a black beard rose out of an easy chair, where he seemed to have been much at home, and came a step towards us. It was too dusk for any recognition of features.
“How do you all do?” he said again. “You don’t expect me, of course, Maimie,—why, how the child has grown! Much obliged to you all for giving her a home at a pinch. Well, Maimie, don’t you know me?”
“Father!” Maimie said hesitatingly. She did not greet him with delight, as she would once have done. His long neglect had naturally chilled her feelings of affection.