“I suppose you’ve often heard that ‘you can’t make a silk purse of a sow’s ear,’ haven’t you?” he asked.
“Yes; I pin right often heeard udt.” She spoke as though she was not wedded to any inflexible opinion concerning the proposition.
“Well, Mrs. Reisen, as a man once said to me, ‘neither can you make a sow’s ear out of a silk purse.’”
“Vell, to be cettaintly!” said the poor woman, drawing not the shadow of an inference; “how kin you?”
“Mr. Richling tells me he will write to Mrs. Richling to prepare to come down in the fall.”
“Vell,” exclaimed the delighted Mrs. Reisen, in her husband’s best manner, “t’at’s te etsectly I atwised him!” And, as the Doctor drove away, she rubbed her mighty hands around each other in restored complacency. Two or three days later she had the additional pleasure of seeing Richling up and about his work again. It was upon her motherly urging that he indulged himself, one calm, warm afternoon, in a walk in the upper part of the city.
CHAPTER XLV.
NARCISSE WITH NEWS.