"You certainly have got lots of folks to care about you," was the comment, when the narrator finally paused for breath. "And you ain't never seen your Pa? Well! Well! Helen Louise and Peter and me we're going to the city to meet Helen Louise's Pa. He's got work there and we're going to live there now."
Helen Louise smiled all over herself at this mention of her father, a toothless smile, but of unmistakable joy, and Arethusa's heart went out to her immediately. Here, very evidently, was another girl-child whose affections were centered largely in a male parent.
"Helen Louise favors her Pa considerable. And they're the biggest geese together!"
Helen Louise's silvery treble piped up. "Papa and me just play and play!" She gave herself something like an anticipatory hug. "Gee, but I'm going to be glad to see him! I ain't seen him for a whole year now!"
"Helen Louise, don't you be telling Miss Worth'ton no story now!" warned her mother. Names had been exchanged. "She ain't seen him for more'n a month reely, but I reckon it does seem 'most a year to her."
Peter now joined his voice to the conversation for the first time, "Ma, I'm hungry."
"Bless us! But it might be dinner time, now, mightn't it. Have you got a watch, Miss Worth'ton?"
Arethusa reached down into her waistband and drew forth Miss Eliza's parting gift. Which was a watch that had seen Miss Eliza faithfully through more than one decade, a large and handsomely chased affair of gold on a long ribbon of black gros-grain.
"The child will need a watch," said Miss Eliza.
Arethusa fully appreciated the parting gift, and she reverenced the old-fashioned timepiece fully as much as had its former owner.