‘You silly child! Don’t you know that cotton grows, and silk has to be spun, which makes it costly? and cotton is content to be washed in spring water, while silk has to be bathed in tea. Can you spare me for a whole afternoon do you think, if I leave Carlyle and Whittier by your pillow?’
‘Well, I want to take some apple custard to that poor Dan who fell from the haymow, and I must go and see how Susan’s children are getting through the measles. Then old Mrs Croaker wants to be sung to, and the widow Larkin wants to be read to, and Matilda Jones is “jest pinin’ fer a talk.”’ She laughed merrily.
‘I never saw anyone get so much into their lives,’ said Polly wistfully. ‘I am so useless.’
‘You blessed child!’ cried Pauline, with the tears in her eyes; ‘you are our Angel of Patience. Don’t ever call yourself useless, dear, you are the centre of gravity for Stephen and me.’
When the twilight fell she sat in her favourite position near the open door, looking up at the rose-tinted clouds, as she made Polly laugh with merry descriptions of her different visits.
Suddenly she grew still, for a sun-browned, bearded man had crossed the threshold, and thrown a paper into her lap, saying huskily:—
‘There’s the mortgage, Pauline, to make a bonfire of. I’ve come home to stay.’
Before he had finished, her arms were around his neck, and Polly heard her cry softly, with the break of a great gladness in her voice:—
‘Lemuel! Why, Lemuel!’