“Thank you so much for coming, Mr. Cranley,” she said; “and, as I have put off luncheon till two, do tell me that you know someone who will suit me for my dear Bun-house. I know how much you have always been interested in our little project.”
Mr. Cranley assured her that, by a remarkable coincidence, he knew the very kind of people she wanted. Alice he briefly described as a respectable woman of great strength of character, “of body, too, I believe, which will not make her less fit for the position.”
“No,” said Mrs. St. John Deloraine, sadly; “the dear girls are sometimes a little tiresome. On Wednesday, Mrs. Carter, the housekeeper, you know, went to one of the exhibitions with her fiancé, and the girls broke all the windows and almost all the tea-things.”
“The woman whom I am happy to be able to recommend to you will not stand anything of that kind,” answered Mr. Cranley. “She is quiet, but extremely firm, and has been accustomed to deal with a very desperate character. At one time, I mean, she was engaged as the attendant of a person of treacherous and ungovernable disposition.”
This was true enough; and Mr. Cranley then began to give a more or less fanciful history of Margaret She had been left in his charge by her father, an early acquaintance, a man who had known better days, but had bequeathed her nothing, save an excellent schooling and the desire to earn her own livelihood.
So far, he knew he was safe enough; for Margaret was the last girl to tell the real tale of her life, and her desire to avoid Maitland was strong enough to keep her silent, even had she not been naturally proud and indisposed to make confidences.
“There is only one thing I must ask,” said Mr. Cranley, when he had quite persuaded the lady that Margaret would set a splendid example to her young friends. “How soon does your housekeeper leave you, and when do you need the services of the new-comers?”
“Well, the plumber is rather in a hurry. He really is a good man, and I like him better for it, though it seems rather selfish of him to want to rob me of Joan. He is; determined to be married before next Bank Holiday—in a fortnight that is—and then they will go on their honeymoon of three days to Yarmouth.”
Mr. Cranley blessed the luck that had not made the plumber a yet more impetuous wooer.
“No laggard in love,” he said, smiling. “Well, in a fortnight the two women will be quite ready for their new place. But I must ask you to remember that the younger is somewhat delicate, and has by no means recovered from the shock of her father’s sudden death—a very sad affair,” added Mr. Cranley, in a sympathetic voice.