It was on the very day after the funeral that Miss Sophia had an unexpected caller, in the person of Cynthia’s father, the proprietor of the largest dry-goods and grocery store in Laurel. She privately wondered what he had come for, but received him with a civility as chilling as the atmosphere of her shrouded “best room,” and as unbending as the tall, spare figure in its gloom of unrelieved black.
Mr. Parker was a man of business, and went straight to the point.
“I hope you’ll excuse my calling so soon, ma’am! I should be very sorry to intrude, but the fact is, I am particularly interested in—ah!—in a present member of your family.”
Here Miss Sophia visibly stiffened, and the gentleman cleared his throat, and made a fresh beginning.
“If I may be allowed to refer to the prospects of your—ahem! of the late Mrs. Waring’s charge, I understand that it is proposed to—that her return to Dakota is—ah!—under consideration?”
“As to Stella,” reluctantly responded Miss Sophia, “I do not quite see—begging your pardon, Mr. Parker—why my plans for the girl should be of particular interest to my neighbors. However, I have no objection to answering your question. Stella is sixteen—quite old enough to go to work, and, thanks to my sister’s possibly mistaken kindness, has a far better education than either her antecedents or her circumstances call for. It is high time, in my opinion, that she was getting in touch with her own people, and becoming accustomed to their mode of life, to which she has so long been a stranger.
“Her own inheritance from an ancestry of savages, Mr. Parker, betrays itself in such escapades as Stella indulged in on the night of my sister’s death, when she ran away to the woods in a violent thunderstorm, was found by your dog, I believe, and brought home after dark by Mr. Silas Wolcott from his place on the Bay road. Such distressing outbreaks render it desirable, certainly, from my point of view, that her return be not delayed too long.”
“That’s about as I supposed, ma’am,” gravely assented Mr. Parker, “and it is on that understanding that I have come here to-day to make a definite proposition to Miss Stella, and to you, as her guardian. It is simply this: that I offer her a home with me, as my daughter’s companion, for the next two years, or until she graduates from Laurel academy. She will be treated precisely like my own daughter, if she comes. I shall make her an allowance for dress, and so forth, and of course pay all of her expenses.”
Poor Miss Sophia was taken entirely by surprise, and had to moisten her dry lips more than once before she could inquire:
“And what, may I ask, is your reason for this—this extraordinary offer?”