“Yes, thank you, ma’am; I had an awful fine voyage, considering the season of the year; and it done me a heap of good.”
“I can see that it has. Sit down now and let us be comfortable,” said the baroness, drawing one of the luxurious chairs nearer to Aunt Sophie, who smiled and bowed in a deprecating little way before she took it.
When they were all seated near what seemed to be a beautiful vase, but what was in reality the porcelain stove that heated the room, Aunt Sophie broke out in child-like admiration:
“I never seen a stove like this in all my life before. I didn’t think as they could make stoves out’n anything but iron.”
“We don’t have them in our own country,” said Lilith. “At least I never saw one.”
The baroness smiled, and then changed the subject by asking Aunt Sophie about the health and welfare of her inmates, and the prosperity of her house. And the old lady answered with simple truth, relating all about the poor young theological student whose only pair of Sunday trousers she had inadvertently brought away; and all about the coming marriage of her favorite boarder, Mrs. Farquier, and Elder Perkins, of their church.
The baroness listened with sympathetic attention, and after a few more cordial words of congratulation or of inquiry, the lady said:
“Now, Mrs. Downie, you will please tell me the name of the hotel you stopped at, so that I may send and have your effects brought hither.”
“The hotel where I stopped, ma’am?” said Aunt Sophie, with a slightly puzzled air.
“Yes, Mrs. Downie; I wish to know so that I may send for your trunk.”