“Presently, my dear, presently. I shall be taking my tub in a few—you say we have a bathroom now? Dear me, how the house has grown. It used to be a sort of stand-up process in a wash-tub half full of warm water and suds. Ah me! What a change time has wrought. You must take me all over the house to-morrow, Jane dear. I sha’n’t be quite up to it this evening, don’t you know. How many servants have we?”
“One,” said Jane succinctly.
“One?” gasped Josephine. “I never heard of such a thing.”
“One is all we need, and besides one is all we can afford. I am afraid you will have a lot to put up with, Mother dear.”
Josephine was silent for a long time. Suddenly she lifted her head and looked up into her daughter’s face.
“My dear,” she said, with a wry little twist at the corner of her generous mouth, “I’ve come home to stay. I daresay you will find me capable of taking things as they are. I did it once before and I can do it again. Now, if you will draw me a nice warm tub; I’ll—I’ll—” she yawned voluptuously—“I’ll get in and sozzle a bit. And that reminds me, Jane. I shall never in any way interfere with you as housekeeper here. Your father assures me that you are a perfect manager. I was a very poor one in my day. I daresay we’d better let well enough alone. Don’t make it too hot, my dear—and do see if you can find my bath slippers in that bag over there by the door.”
The express wagon with Mrs. Sage’s trunks arrived as Oliver, in despair, was preparing to depart as he had come, on Marmaduke Smith’s bicycle. He took fresh hope. Here was a chance to see Jane after all. With joyous avidity he offered to help Joe O’Brien lug the trunks upstairs.
“Where do you want ’em, Jane?” he shouted from the bottom of the stairs. There was no answer. “Where shall we put them, Uncle Herbert?” he asked, his hands jammed deep in his pockets.
“Bless my soul, I—I haven’t an idea,” groaned Mr. Sage, passing his hand over his brow. This act seemed to have cleared some of the fog from his brain. “Unless you put them in my study,” he suggested brightly. “They will fill it to overflowing, but—but I can think of no other place. Dear me, what a lot of them there are.”
Fifteen minutes later, the trunks being piled high in the pastor’s little study, Oliver mopped his brow and expressed himself feelingly to Mr. Sage from the bottom of the porch steps.