I would have given up trying to get her to come then, as her tone sounded final to me, but Mrs. Vernon caught a gleam of willingness in her expression, and she said,
“Some country places may be doleful, Minerva, but Clover Lodge is in one of the most beautiful places in the world, and there’s a light kitchen and you can take ‘Miss Pussy,’ you know. I’m sure you’ll like it and the work won’t be as hard as it is here and there’s lots of fresh air. And I’ll lend you books to read. If you won’t come we’ll have to give up going, as I won’t take a stranger up from the city.”
“Yas’m,” said Minerva, turning to the stove and beginning to use the brush again.
“Well, will you go, Minerva?”
“Yas’m.”
“Oh, you dear good thing,” said my wife, and I fully expected her to hug Minerva.
She came in to where I was finishing my second cup of coffee and said,
“Minerva is a jewel. She’s going up. Do you know, in some ways it’s better than if we had Mamie Logan because Minerva is a much better cook and she won’t have any beaux from the village to make a noise in the kitchen in the evening—”
“No, but you may have to import beaux from Thompson Street to solace her loneliness,” said I. “If I know the kind at all, Minerva will die one day away from New York.”
“Nonsense,” said Ethel. “She can’t help falling in love with the view from the kitchen windows. That lovely old purple Mount Nebo.”