“Yes, indeed,” Mrs. Adams asserted, “we’ve never had a bachelor president of Corinth and I hope we never will. Mrs. Bates is a nice sweet-spoken lady, a widow of four years standing, and I do say she’s just the one for Doctor Waring’s wife. She has dignity, and yet she’s mighty human.”
Emily Bates was human. Not very tall, a little inclined to plumpness, with fair hair and laughing blue eyes, she was of a cozy, home-loving sort, and her innate good nature and ready tact were unfailing.
At first she had resisted John Waring’s appeal, but he persisted, until she found she really liked the big, wholesome man, and without much difficulty learned to love him.
Waring was distinguished-looking rather than handsome. Tall and well-made, he had a decided air of reserve which he rarely broke through, but which, Emily Bates discovered, could give way to confidences showing depths of sweetness and charm.
The two were happily matched. Waring was forty-two and Mrs. Bates half a dozen years younger. But both seemed younger than their years, and retained their earlier tastes and enthusiasms.
Also both were bound up, heart and soul, in the welfare of the University. Mrs. Bates’ first husband had been one of its prominent professors and its history and traditions were known and loved by the cheery little lady.
Perhaps the only person in Corinth who was not pleased at the approaching nuptials of John Waring and Emily Bates was Mrs. Peyton, Waring’s present housekeeper. For it meant the loss of her position, which she had faithfully filled for ten years or more. And this meant the loss of a good and satisfactory home, not only for herself, but for her daughter Helen, a girl of eighteen, who lived there also.
Not yet had Waring told his housekeeper that she was to be dethroned but she knew the notice would come,—knew, too, that it was delayed only because of John Waring’s disinclination to say or do anything unwelcome to another. And Mrs. Peyton had been his sister’s school friend and had served him well and faithfully. Yet she must go, for the incoming mistress needed no other housekeeper for the establishment than her own efficient, capable self.
It was a very cold February afternoon, and Mrs. Peyton was serving tea in the cheerful living-room. Emily Bates was present; an indulgence she seldom allowed herself, for she was punctilious regarding conventions, and Corinth people, after all, were critical. Though, to be sure, there was no harm in her taking tea in the home so soon to be her own.
The two women were outwardly most courteous, and if there was an underlying hostility it was not observable on the part of either.