"What could you expect," Mrs. Sanford said, "of a girl Mrs. Brown recommended? She's no kind of a housekeeper. She'd be sure to have a pig killed on the wane of the moon. And she's like one of her own doughnuts: she's no sort or kind of life nor sconce, but tough as leather to bite, if you are ever hungry enough to want to eat one. I declare I am worn almost to a shadow with trying girls, and not getting one fit to live with."
But at last a ray of light had shone through the clouds. Bathalina Mixon had sent word that her experience of wedded bliss was not, on the whole, satisfactory, and that she was willing to return and be forgiven. So Mrs. Sanford and Will were going to treat with the repentant bride, and if possible arrange for her return.
"She ain't more than half-witted," Mrs. Sanford said; "but I've concluded that's an advantage; and she knows the ways of the house, and is afraid of the doctor."
Few couples were ever more ill-assorted than Dr. Sanford and his wife; but the husband bore with admirable patience the follies which experience had taught him it was idle to hope to eradicate. His keen sense of humor aided him in this forbearance, and a remark of his wife's more than usually grotesque, had no other visible effect upon him than to provoke a quiet smile about the corners of his lips. The doctor was unspeakably fond of his children, and in them found something of the companionship denied him with his wife. Will was to succeed his father in his practice, and was already studying with that in view. For Patty her father could not bear to plan a future, since he could not endure the thought of separation. Her wooers had made little impression upon him, but he frowned decidedly upon Clarence Toxteth.
"I do not like the breed," he said to his wife. "The Toxteth blood doesn't seem to have any brain-making power in it."
"I think anybody must have brains to get money," Mrs. Sanford answered. "They've got that, at any rate, and only one son for it to go to."
"One son of that kind," her husband returned grimly, "is a great plenty."
Towards Mr. Putnam the doctor's attitude was not hostile, but rather that of one who reserved his opinion. He postponed in his mind the consideration of these things, as if by so doing he could delay the inevitable, and retain his favorite child the longer in the home-nest.
But all this has no very intimate connection with the visit which Mrs. Sanford and her son had set out to pay to Mrs. Mixon. They found her in a dilapidated building in the outskirts of Samoset, which had been built as a tenement for the hands in a cotton-mill now burned. Hither Peter had conveyed his bride, when, flushed with eager love, she flew to his arms from the funeral of her cousin's child; and for a week he had treated her with the utmost consideration, having an eye to her money.
"The shekels naturally belong in the husband's hands," he said, "and you'd better let me take care of them. These banks are slippery things, and I've no confidence in those Samoset fellers anyway. I'll get it, and you can call on me for cash when you want it."