"No, indeed," interrupted John hastily; "but he does want to send you, Miss Martha. He empowered me to request that you take the trip, permitting him to be at all expense."
"He did, did he?" retorted Miss Lacey, her eyes drying and snapping again. "Well, I should think it was about time he stopped sending folks on that errand," she continued, with a superior contempt for consistency. "It's about time he went himself. I guess he feels pretty small about the whole thing if the truth were known. Isn't that touching about Sylvia's kissing his picture? How did he feel when he read that, Mr. Dunham?"
"Impossible to tell. All he said was 'get out.'"
Miss Lacey's nostrils dilated. "Well," she ejaculated, "all is I know if I'd mar—that is," she added faintly, "I'm glad Laura didn't live to see this day. He has a great deal less excuse than I have, Mr. Dunham, and I have little enough." Miss Martha finished with sincere feeling. "You tell Judge Trent for me, Mr. Dunham, that he had better go to that farm himself."
CHAPTER XII
A LOST OAR
Mrs. Lem's awe of the new Miss Lacey was short-lived. The fact that she came out of that vague locality known as the West seemed to soothe the housekeeper's latent suspicion that the young girl might be "big feeling." Sylvia was reticent even in the presence of Edna Derwent, and this silence could not proceed from snobbishness; moreover, her spirits rose after the departure of the Boston girl, and Mrs. Lem decided that Thinkright's guest was, in spite of her slim height and the dignity of her black garments, only a shy girl who needed encouraging.
"Do you think Miss Derwent's pretty?" she asked Sylvia after Edna had made her adieux.
"Very," answered Sylvia, who was enveloped in the apron the guest had worn the night before, and was awkwardly wiping dishes as the housekeeper washed them. Minty had gone to school.