Mrs. Pole looked up in mute surprise and inquiry.
“Why, this is it. You know there is ever so much carpenter’s work wanting to be done on the place. I have heard Cleve talking about it. The barn is to be almost rebuilt, and the house here wants repairs. Cleve thought of getting a carpenter down from Staunton. But now, you see, I shall just ask him to send for Mr. Morgan. And then they can all come down here—husband, wife and children! Won’t that be glorious, Poley? And he will not lose his time, and they will not be under expenses!” cried Palma in delight.
“That will be very fine indeed, ma’am, if so be it can be managed,” replied Mrs. Pole.
And then she began to compute how much it would cost to bring Joseph and Jane Morgan and their family from New York to West Virginia, and to count up her own savings from her wages.
“I can do it,” she said to herself. “I can do it! And they can pay me afterward as they get on, and if they don’t they needn’t bother about it.”
Palma went straight to Cleve and unfolded her views.
“You see, dear,” she said, after she had duly introduced the subject, “I did give Poley leave to ask her niece and the children to come down here and stay with her while we should be away in Europe; for, oh! only think how much good it will do those poor little children! And now since the husband and father is a carpenter and a skilled workman, as Poley says he is, what could happen better for all parties? You can engage him to do the work here that is so much wanted. And it will be such a good thing for him and his family as well as for us.”
“My dear quixotic Palma, your benevolence carries you into wild extravagance, I fear,” said Stuart, with a smile.
“I was only thinking of the poor man—a skilled mechanic, too, out of employment—and of his poor, overtasked wife and their poor little children. I know it is an unusual thing to do to bring down a whole family when one only wants a carpenter. But then, you see, the circumstances are also unusual, and——”
“And the little woman who plans the arrangements is not only unusual, but—phenomenal!” Stuart said, interrupting her, with a smile.