“The more reason, then, that I should get my cured hay in the barns,” declared Beth, with a grim little nod. “‘Avaunt! Avaunt! I scorn thy gold, likewise thy pedigree; I am betrothed to Ben-ja-min, who sails upon the sea,’” quoted Beth from a burlesque verse that they were fond of. “Tempt me not, I tell you.”
And on this very Saturday afternoon something happened that made Beth very glad she had remained in her own room, working. A pair of very plump bay horses, drawing an old-fashioned family carriage, came to the main door of the school, and a footman as fat as the horses, who sat beside the coachman fatter still, got stiffly down and puffed up the steps.
He bore a card which he gave to Miss Small, who chanced to be in the hall at the moment. The card read:
Mrs. Ricardo Severn
“Does Miss Baldwin live here?” asked the fat footman, asthmatically.
“There is such a student,” the under housekeeper said, wonderingly.
“My missus sent me for her,” said the man, blinking sleepily.
“Mrs. Severn?” repeated Miss Small.
“Oh! who does Mrs. Severn want?” cried Maude Grimshaw, who chanced to be passing through the hall and saw the footman’s gorgeous livery, as well as heard the lady’s name mentioned.
She came swiftly to the under housekeeper’s side and whispered: “Mrs. Severn is the e-nor-mously rich old lady who lives on the Boulevard, in the stone house, with the parrot and a whole raft of servants. Who does she want, dear Miss Small?”