“Do you think she knows enough?” hazarded the maternal Hodskiss.
“Quite sufficient for any decent woman,” retorted the contractor. “When Clemmy wants painting and stuffing, it will be time enough for her to think about getting one of your ‘Ach Himmels’ or ‘Mon Dieus’.”
“I like the girl myself immensely,” agreed Clementina’s mother. “You can trust her, and she doesn’t give herself airs.”
Her praises reached even the countess, suffering severely at the moment from the tyranny of an elderly Fraulein.
“I must see this treasure,” thought the countess to herself. “I am tired of these foreign minxes.”
But no matter at what cunning hour her ladyship might call, the “treasure” always happened for some reason or other to be abroad.
“Your girl is always out when I come,” laughed the countess. “One would fancy there was some reason for it.”
“It does seem odd,” agreed Clementina, with a slight flush.
Miss Hodskiss herself showed rather than spoke her appreciation of the girl. She seemed unable to move or think without her. Not even from the interviews with Lord C--- was the maid always absent.
The marriage, it was settled, should be by licence. Mrs. Hodskiss made up her mind at first to run down and see to the preliminaries, but really when the time arrived it hardly seemed necessary to take that trouble. The ordering of the whole affair was so very simple, and the “treasure” appeared to understand the business most thoroughly, and to be willing to take the whole burden upon her own shoulders. It was not, therefore, until the evening before the wedding that the Hodskiss family arrived in force, filling Aunt Jane’s small dwelling to its utmost capacity. The swelling figure of the contractor, standing beside the tiny porch, compelled the passer-by to think of the doll’s house in which the dwarf resides during fair-time, ringing his own bell out of his own first-floor window. The countess and Lord C--- were staying with her ladyship’s sister, the Hon. Mrs. J---, at G--- Hall, some ten miles distant, and were to drive over in the morning. The then Earl of --- was in Norway, salmon fishing. Domestic events did not interest him.