"Children here keep their white frocks for Sundays," was the decisive reply.
"She may as well wear these out. They were made last summer. She has not grown much meanwhile. I should like to keep her in the way her father desired."
"Then she must have a long-sleeved apron to cover her up. This will make two. For those white things make an endless sight of washing."
"I have been considering that," said Rachel Winn quietly. "I wear white a good deal myself. I noticed a small house on Front Street where there were nearly always clothes on the lines, and I stopped in to inquire. I felt it was too much laundry-work for your woman through the summer. This Mrs. Pratt is very reasonable and does her work nicely. So I have made arrangements with her. Captain Leverett made a generous allowance for incidental expenses."
What Elizabeth termed Miss Winn's "independence" grated sorely upon her ideas of what was owing to the head of the house, which was herself. It was always done so quietly and pleasantly one could hardly take umbrage. Cynthia was not exactly a child of the house. She was in no wise dependent on her newly found relatives. Chilian had made that understood in the beginning, when he had chosen the best chamber for them.
"You don't need to take boarders," she had replied tartly.
"I don't know as we are to call it that. I am the child's guardian and answerable for her comfort and her welfare. The perfect trust confided in me has touched me inexpressibly. I didn't know that Anthony Leverett held me in such high esteem. And if I choose to put this money by until she is grown—it will make such a little difference in our living——"
"Chilian Leverett, you are justly entitled to it," she interrupted with sharp decision. "He's right enough in making a fair provision for them—no doubt he has plenty. But I don't quite like the boarder business, for all that."
"We must get some one to help you with the work."
"I don't want any more help than I have. Land sakes! Eunice and I have plenty of leisure on our hands. I wouldn't have a servant around wasting things, if she paid me wages."