"Miss Very, I presume?" said Quincy, as he advanced towards the young lady on the sofa.
She arose as he approached, and answered, "Yes, sir."
"Come with me, please," said he, grasping the valise. She hesitated; he understood why. "It's all right," he said, in a low tone. "I've settled with the landlady, and you can settle with me any time."
"Thank you, so much," spoke a sweet voice from underneath the veil, and the owner of it followed close behind him, and he handed her into the carriage. As Quincy pulled the carriage door to, that of the lodging house closed with a report like that of a pistol, and Mrs. Colby went down stairs and told the servant, who was scrubbing the kitchen floor, what had occurred, and added that she "had always had her suspicions of that Miss Very."
While Quincy was talking with Alice the day before, his dinner that Mrs. Hawkins had saved for him was being burned to a crisp in and on the stove. Mrs. Hawkins's attention was finally attracted to it, and, turning to Betsy, she said, "Law sakes, somethin' must be burnin'." Running to the stove, she soon discovered the cause. "Mercy on me!" she ejaculated. "I left that damper open, and his dinner's burnt to a cinder. Wall, I don't care; he may be a good lodger, an' all that, but he's a mighty poor boarder; and it's no satisfaction gittin' up things for him to eat, and then lettin' them go to waste, even if he does pay for it. Them's my sentiments, and I'll feel better now I've spit it out."
The good woman went to work to clean up her stove, while Betsy kept on with the seemingly endless dish washing. Mrs. Hawkins finished her work, and, going to the sink, began to wipe the accumulated pile of dishes.
"I s'pose everybody in town will go to church next Sunday," said Mrs. Hawkins, "to see them brides."
"Will they look any different than they did the other day?" Betsy innocently inquired.