“The trouble with you is that you are trying to cultivate a Puritan conscience,” returned he.
“You wouldn’t think so if you could have heard me ‘sass’ Cousin Rindy this morning. She is so notional and exacting sometimes, that I flare up and the fur flies. I suppose we get on each other’s nerves.”
“Exactly. Do you know, Miss North, that you have worked out that bill of mine? I wanted to talk to you about it; that’s why I got you off to myself to-day. When Caro is around she hangs on your neck and talks nonsense, while Rindy monopolizes the conversation when she is present. Do you want to keep on doing my sums for me?”
“Indeed I do if you want me to.” Ellen had been taking home the work and doing it in the evenings.
“Well, now that we are quits of professional services I can pay you something, not a munificent sum, but enough to pay some one to help you out with the work once in a while and give you more freedom.”
“Oh, doctor, how good you are! You know Beulah Fitchett does our washing, and I am sure she would be glad to come oftener.”
“Then that’s settled. I am getting up some statistics for an article I want to write for a medical magazine, so you can help with that; and I want to make a special report to the health department, so that will keep us busy for a while.”
Cheered by her drive and heartened by the prospect of relief from hard, rough work, Ellen returned to face the future bravely. Miss Rindy improved steadily, and soon was able to get about on crutches and to do many little things. Beulah responded with alacrity to the invitation to come and help with the housework, and while she never quite satisfied Miss Rindy, being sketchy in her performances and slow in her movements, nevertheless she was good-natured, honest, and clean. Moreover, though she had a high opinion of her own importance and had to be managed, Miss Rindy knew how to get along with her.
“I always invite her to do things and never order her,” she told Bessie Todd; “and she is such a source of entertainment that I would put up with a good deal for the sake of having her around. She told me to-day that her whole name was Beulahland, but they called her Beulah for short.”
“Great big fat thing; I wouldn’t be bothered with her,” responded Bessie.