“I think the stocking would stand a little more wear,” said Vic, laying down her own work and examining critically that of her sister. “I like a good big hole if I am going to darn at all. Running over thin places bores me to death. It is just like life. A big hole is like a big calamity; you can rise above it. But the little botherations are like the thin places. You have got to go over them and patch them up, or else they will go altogether, and yet there is really nothing to show for it in the end, and the doing it tires you out. With a big hole or a big trouble you know just where you are and how you stand. But tell me what you think of the new maid.”
“I am afraid she is like the thin places in the stockings,” said Honor, laughing as she made the comparison. “She requires a great deal of attention, and I don’t know where she is going to burst out next.”
“What is her name?”
“That is the queerest part of her. She told me it was ‘B.’ Lafferty.”
“Bee?” repeated Victoria. “What a curious name! Do you suppose it is short for Beatrice?”
“Not at all. It is the letter B, and it really stands for Bridget, but she told me she never liked the name of Bridget and didn’t wish to be called that. I told her I thought I should, upon which she said she should take the next train back to Boston if we did. Her friends called her ‘B.,’ and we must call her ‘B.,’ or if not ‘B.’ it could be ‘Blanch.’ On the whole, she preferred Blanch, so I suppose it has got to be that, though I can’t imagine anything more inappropriate.”
“You may be thankful she didn’t request us to call her ‘Miss Lafferty,’” laughed Victoria. “I think she is going to be amusing.”
“I hope so,” said Honor, somewhat grimly. “To me at present it seems more tragic than amusing. She won’t have late dinner, for one thing. We have got to dine in the middle of the day after to-night. It really seems as if she meant to rule us, but I shan’t let her.”
The family were engaged in eating the last dinner which they were to be allowed to enjoy in the evening when the Fordham and Boston express wagon was heard coming down the Glen Arden avenue, and shortly afterwards the door which led into the front hall from the kitchen department was flung open by B. Lafferty, who announced as she did so that “a whole lot of furniters had come, and what was she to be afther doin’ wid ’em?”
“Bring them right in here, please,” said Honor. “Peter, won’t you go and help? We shall have to do a good deal ourselves, I suppose, now that we have only one girl,” she added, as Blanch’s heavy tread echoed in the distance, and Peter, who had heard of Katherine’s shopping expedition and was possessed of a lively curiosity, went willingly enough to investigate the result.