“Yes, that’s what I said,” replied the girl.
Mrs. Lawton burned to ask what other name the lad bore, but the peremptory tones of her daughter warned her off. Instead she remarked: “And so he’s been livin’ in Tecumseh all this while? They seem to have brung him up pretty good—teachin’ him his A B C’s and curlin’ his hair.”
“He had a good home. Jess paid high, and the people took a liking to him,” said Lucinda.
“I s’pose they died or broke up housekeepin’,” tentatively suggested Mrs. Lawton.
“No: Jess wanted him here, or thought she did.” Lucinda’s loyalty to her sister prompted her to stop the explanation at this. But she herself had been sorely puzzled and tried by the change which had come over the little household since the night of the boy’s arrival, and the temptation to put something of this into words was too strong to be mastered.
“I wish myself he hadn’t come at all,” she continued from the table where she was at work. “Not but that he’s a good enough young-one, and lots of company for us both, but Jess ain’t been herself at all since she brought him here. It ain’t his fault—poor little chap—but she fetched him from Tecumseh on account of something special; and then that something didn’t seem to come off, and she’s as blue as a whetstone about it, and that makes everything blue. And there we are!”
Lucinda finished in a sigh, and proceeded to rub grease on the inside of her cake tins with a gloomy air.
In the outer shop, Jessica found herself standing surprised and silent before the sudden apparition of a visitor whom she had least of all expected—Miss Kate Minster.
The bell which formerly jangled when the street door opened had been taken off because it interfered with the child’s mid-day sleep, and Jessica herself had been so deeply lost in a brown study where she sat sewing behind the counter that she had not noted the entrance of the young lady until she stood almost within touch. Then she rose hurriedly, and stood confused and tongue-tied, her work in hand. She dropped this impediment when Miss Minster offered to shake hands with her, but even this friendly greeting did not serve to restore her self-command or induce a smile.