"I told you—" began Eliza slowly.
"I know all about that," interrupted Mrs. Wright, "but little by little you'll find that all hard wilfulness is flat, stale, and unprofitable. Now you'd better spend this week before the Fabians come in trying that recipe every time you think of them. 'A little love, a little trust, a soft impulse.'"
"And what will Mrs. Fabian be doin' all that time?" asked Eliza hardily. "Do you suppose she'll have any soft impulses toward me until I give her her aunt's things? That barrel upstairs in the back bedroom has got her grandmother's china and silver in it."
"What do you want of it, Eliza?" asked Mrs. Wright.
"To keep it away from her," was the prompt reply; and the speaker saw a cloud pass over the eyes she had learned to love. "Anyway, Mrs. Wright," she went on earnestly, "she left 'em all to me, all her things, Mrs. Ballard did."
"I see," said Mrs. Wright thoughtfully. "Doubtless her grateful heart longed to leave you her money, and deciding to do otherwise she felt she wished you to have something equivalent."
While they talked, Captain James had started across the field toward them, and now he drew near, walking beneath the bold and intricate curves made by wheeling swallows, the deep blue of their backs flashing iridescent in the sunlight.
"Say," he called, "these fellers have set up housekeepin' over there in the Fabian porch. Snug as bugs in rugs they are. Darned if I know what to do."
"Who?—the swallows?" asked Mrs. Wright.
"Yes." Captain James seated himself on a rustic bench in the sun. "It's the new wind-break they had put up last summer did the mischief. Always been too blowy other springs for 'em to try it."