“Dear ma’am, wouldn’t you like to come into the schoolroom with Miss Meeke and me and help us to tie up parcels for Christmas presents to the colored people?”
“Of course I will, if you want me to. But, Lord, that’s no work!”
“Oh, yes, it is. There are more than twenty parcels, little and big. And all the stores are in large bundles, and we have got to divide them fairly, and tie them up, and write the names on them. It will take us all the morning.”
“All right; I will go ’long of you, and help with the dividing and tying up. I don’t know about the names. I ain’t very good at writing,” said the guest, allowing herself to be carried off by Wynnette.
“How in the name of the Inscrutable could Anglesea ever have been tempted to marry such a woman? Was he drunk, I wonder?” whispered Abel Force to his wife.
The lady shook her head.
“I have given it up,” she replied.
Mrs. Force went upstairs, to send little Elva down to her breakfast, and to sit beside Odalite.
Mr. Force went into the little den at the back of the hall, where he kept his writing desk and account books and held interviews with his overseer or his attorney.