Mrs. Porter was Miss Barry's prop and stay in matters regarding her niece, and she turned to her when succeeding days revealed the fact that Linda had set out deliberately to spoil the "help."
The mistress of the house left the kitchen one morning after her plans were perfected for dinner and sought Mrs. Porter. She could hear the faint buzzing of the sewing machine which lived by the front window in the hall upstairs.
She ascended with a firm tread. "This is a shame," she announced warmly, as she stood beside her friend, viewing the lengths of silky soft pink stuff which were running beneath the swift needle.
"What's a shame?" asked Mrs. Porter, without stopping her work.
Miss Barry sat down in a chair opposite her.
"That you should be penned up in the house this beautiful morning stitching away hour after hour. You were doing the same thing yesterday."
"It's fun," returned Mrs. Porter.
"Oh, fun!" scornfully. "You always say everything's fun—walking to the village when Blanche Aurora has carelessly forgotten something, going out in the rain to take in the towels she's overlooked—everything's fun with you."
Mrs. Porter smiled without raising her eyes from her fine seam.
"I don't believe you ever taught music eight hours a day," she said.