It was always Salome who made the tea, and her tea was excellent. She, indeed, attended generally to the housekeeping. Carefully trained by the Scotch cousin in whose home she had passed so many years, Salome had developed into as notable a housekeeper as her teacher. She was well versed in the niceties belonging to every department of domestic management. Her jams were always clear, her cakes light; her store cupboard never seemed to get out of order, and it was a pleasure to look into the linen-press, for Salome was a first-rate needlewoman also, and prided herself on the way she marked and kept the household linen.
Mrs. Tracy was well pleased, on the whole, to leave the care of the household in her daughter's capable hands. She was conscious that she was herself by no means a model housekeeper. As she moved with Captain Tracy from station to station, she had kept house in a careless, happy-go-lucky fashion, and the captain had never grumbled, though he seldom found it convenient to dine with his wife. But their expenses, though there was little to show for them, had mounted up wonderfully, and Mrs. Tracy had always an uneasy sense that she was being cheated, without being able to discover where the fraud originated.
Ere long they went to India, and there, as everyone knows, housekeeping differs considerably from the prosaic ordering of an English home. So Mrs. Tracy, on her return from abroad, had been thankful to find Salome such a clever manager, with quite an old head on her young shoulders. The mother, with her delicate health and languid dislike to exertion, had gradually fallen into the position of a merely nominal ruler, content to perform only such functions as her powerful prime minister would permit.
It had been necessary for Salome to leave school very early, though for some years afterwards she had pursued the study of music, with the result that she was now able, by giving lessons, to earn a sum which more than covered her modest personal expenses. There were times when Salome felt keenly the deficiencies in her education and the poverty of her mental attainments, compared with those of Hannah. But her sister never assumed airs of superiority. She was always ready to assure Salome that she had a special gift for domestic economy, and served the family interests as truly by her clever thrift and practical industry as she herself did by means of the good salary she earned.
A close bond united the sisters, though their affection was not demonstrative. Salome had the greatest admiration for Hannah's intellectual ability, and gladly set her free to devote her time to study, by undertaking Hannah's mending and making in addition to her own. She held Hannah's opinions in high esteem, and echoed them with a firm belief that they were her own. The two held together in most things, and on no matter were they more in accord than in their criticism of Juliet, and their mother's mistaken treatment of her.
Salome was pre-eminently a worker. Despite her many home duties, her music lessons, her sewing, she yet found time to take up outside work. She was a most exemplary Sunday-school teacher, and Mr. Hayes, the Vicar of St. Jude's, a church near The Poplars, counted on her help in various branches of his parish work.
Mrs. Hayes, herself a woman of considerable energy, which had to divide itself between the claims of her husband's parish and those of her rather numerous family, thought Miss Salome Grant a most excellent person, who would prove just the wife that Mr. Ainger, their single curate, needed; one who would make the very most of his slender stipend, and be capable of superintending any amount of cutting out and sewing for the poor of his parish, to say nothing of the management of soup-kitchens and blanket-clubs. Mr. Hayes was quite of the same opinion, though he made a mental note of the fact that Miss Grant was rather plain in appearance. But he himself had chosen his wife on the same principle that he chose his boots and broadcloth, for good wearing rather than showy qualities, with the additional advantage, which Salome lacked, that the lady had a few hundreds a year of her own.
Mr. Ainger, however, though ready to echo the praise which the vicar's wife bestowed on Miss Grant, evinced no desire to make her excellences his own. He remained obtuse to every hint, and Mrs. Hayes could only sigh over the perversity of men.
"Tea is ready, mother," said Salome, when she had filled all the cups, and Mrs. Tracy still remained at a distance bending over her needlework.
"In one moment, dear," said her mother; "I must finish this, now it is so nearly done."