The burden of this fell principally upon her husband. He was obliged now and then to temporize with an indignant cook to secure a dinner for the evening; on one occasion he employed all his finesse to effect without scandal the removal of a frantic chamber-maid; and he became more familiarly known to the intelligence offices than he had ever expected to be. His wife was manifestly incapable of keeping a house, and he was committed to housekeeping for a year to come.
March passed and April came. One evening they sat together in their little parlor. The weather outside was raw and rainy, and not all of its chill could be kept out by the grate-fire over which Jessie was cowering and shivering. She wore a fleecy wrap on which her thin fingers took a sinuous clutch, and she was nursing a cold whose sniffling discomfort seemed passing into an obstinate cough. She was running over the newspaper carelessly.
"I see Mayme Brainard's 'mother has just died," she said presently. "'On the eighth of April, at her residence'—and all that—'Abigail Brainard, aged fifty-six years.' Wasn't she any older than that? Well, I suppose not. No great change for her, is it?"
"What did she die of?"
"Oh, it was her lungs. It's a wonder that anybody lives through these springs. I can't think why we ever got so close to the lake as this. I don't feel sure of getting through another winter here myself."
She leaned forward to stir the fire, and then lay back, coughing.
"I suppose they'll let Mayme come home, now—for the funeral, anyway. I wonder if shell bring the baby; he swears he won't see it. Cornelia says it's a pretty little thing—Abbie was down there a month ago."
George stared at the fire thoughtfully, and reached mechanically for the poker.
"I don't know how they will feel, now, about staying in that house," she went on. "Cornelia wants to move the whole family over here, but Abbie won't listen to her. I don't know whether she likes her own part of town, but she seems to have taken a strong dislike to this. Anyway, she has never come near me, for all you helped them at her brother's wedding. Cornelia appears to think everything of her, though, and I guess she likes Cornelia quite a little. Funny, isn't it, that those two—Goodness, George, don't knock the fire all to pieces. Here; let me have it."
She took the poker from him.