“What is it, Delia?”
“I’m thinkin’, Miss Marne, you’d better be lookin’ for a new girl.”
“Why, what’s the matter? You don’t want to leave us, do you?”
“No, miss, I don’t want to, an’ that’s the truth. But I don’t think I’ll be stayin’ any longer than you can get another girl.”
“What’s the trouble, Delia?”
“It’s lonesomeness, Miss Marne. It’s that respectable out here that there’s niver a policeman comes along this street for days at a time. An’ the milkman comes around that early I niver see him, an’ anyway he’s elderly an’ the father of four. An’ it’s so high-toned, there ain’t a livery stable anywhere, an’ so there’s none of them boys to pass a word with once in a while. An’ there’s only the postman, an’ him small and married.”
There was silence for a moment while the maid shuffled her feet and turned her tray about and the sisters bit their lips. Then Isabella exclaimed, in a tone of brisk sympathy:
“Yes, Delia, I understand how you feel, and I don’t blame you at all, but——”
“Don’t make up your mind right away, Delia,” Henrietta broke in. “Think about it a little longer. Maybe something will happen.”