“Yes, I do. I’ve got something to say to her, something rather important. I want you to be there when I say it. I’ll wait and go into the house with you when you’re ready. That is, if it’s all right.”
Another momentary pause. Then Miss Clark nodded.
“No reason why it shouldn’t be all right,” she said. “You better come into the shop and wait.... Be still, Millard! Here, you let Cap’n Townsend through into the shop and light the lamp there. Yes, and when you’ve done it you come straight back and help me sweep up. Bring the broom with you. Hurry now!”
Mr. Clark, whose eager ears had been strained to catch this conversation, hastened to unlock the door between the post-office waiting-room and the official quarters. He ushered the visitor into the large apartment at the rear of the building—or would have done so if the said visitor had not pushed him aside and gone in first. About this room were stands displaying finished hats and bonnets. Others, but partially finished, lay about upon tables and chairs. In the room also were two sewing-machines, workbaskets, scraps of ribbons and cloth, spools of thread, and the general disorder of the workroom of a millinery shop. Reliance Clark was the town milliner as well as its postmistress. “I and Esther and Mil have to live on somethin’,” Reliance had more than once told Abbie Makepeace, the middle-aged spinster who was her partner in the millinery business, “and what Uncle Sam pays me for sortin’ letters is nothin’, or next door to it.”
Millard Fillmore, agog with excitement, pulled forward a chair, carefully wiping its seat with a soiled handkerchief, and Foster Townsend sat down. Mr. Clark cleared his throat and offered apologies.
“We don’t usually look so—so sort of messed up out here, Cap’n Foster,” he explained; “but the mail’s been so extry heavy lately—election day comin’ and all—that we ain’t neither of us had hardly a minute to spare.... It ain’t any of my business, Cap’n,” he added, lowering his voice, “but did I understand you to say you’d come here to-night to see—to see—Esther? I wasn’t quite sure as I heard it straight, but—”
From the adjoining room his sister’s voice issued an order. “Bring that broom,” she commanded.
Mr. Clark hesitated.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse me, Cap’n Foster,” he explained. “You see, there’s a little too much work for Reliance to handle, and she—yes, yes, I’m comin’, Reliance. Heavens and earth! can’t you wait a minute?”
He took the broom from the corner and joined his sister. Foster Townsend, left alone, crossed his knees and leaned back in the chair.