The Late Mrs. Null

by Frank R. Stockton

At dinner that day Annie took her place at one end of the table, and Lawrence his at the other, but the old lady did not make her appearance. She was so erratic in her goings and comings, and had so often told them they must never wait for her, that Annie cut the ham, and Lawrence carved the fowl, and the meal proceeded without her. But while they were eating Mrs Keswick was heard coming down stairs from her room, the front door was opened and slammed violently, and from the dining-room windows they saw her go down the steps, across the yard, and out of the gate.

"I do hope," ejaculated Annie, "that she has not gone away to stay!"

If Annie had remembered that the boy Plez, in a clean jacket and long white apron, officiated as waiter, she would not have said this, but then she would have lost some information. "Ole miss not gone to stay," he said, with the license of an untrained retainer. "She gone to Howlettses, an' she done tole Aun' Letty she'll be back agin dis ebenin'."

"If Aunt Keswick don't come back," said Annie, when the two were in the parlor after dinner, "I shall go after her. I don't intend to drive her out of the house."

"Don't you trouble yourself about that, my dear," said Lawrence. "She is too angry not to come back."

"There is one thing," said Annie, after a while, "that we really ought to do. To-morrow Aunt Patsy is to be buried, and before she is put into the ground, those little shoes should be returned to Aunt Keswick. It seems to me that justice to poor Aunt Patsy requires that this should be done. Perhaps now she knows how wicked it was to steal them."

"Yes," said Lawrence, "I think it would be well to put them back where they belong; but how can you manage it?"

"If you will give them to me," said Annie, "I will go up to aunt's room, now that she is away, and if she keeps the box in the same place where it used to be, I'll slip them into it. I hate dreadfully to do it, but I really feel that it is a duty."

When Lawrence, with some little difficulty, walked across the yard to get the shoes from his trunk, Annie ran after him, and waited at the office door. "You must not take a step more than necessary," she said, "and so I won't make you come back to the house."

When Lawrence gave her the shoes, and her hand a little squeeze at the same time, he told her that he should sit down immediately and write his letter.