“You will kindly not use the public ferry; the footman will row you across to Wittisham at any hour you may mention to him.”
“Oh, but Aunt de Tracy, I’d really prefer the public ferry.”
“Nonsense, impossible; the footman shall row you,” said Mrs. de Tracy with finality.
Robinette said nothing; she hated the idea of the footman, but it seemed inevitable. “Am I never to get away from their dullnesses?” she thought. “A public ferry sounds quite lively in place of being rowed by William!”
When the shore was reached, however, Robinette discovered that the passage across the river in a leaky little boat, rowed by a painfully inexperienced servant, was almost too much for her. To see him fumbling with the oars, made her tingle to take them herself; she could not abide the irritation of a return journey with such a boatman. This determination was hastened when she saw that instead of the three-decker steamer of her native land, the ferry at Wittisham was just like an ordinary row-boat; that 44 one rang a bell hanging from a picturesque tower; that a nice young man with a sprig of wallflower in his cap rowed one across, and that each passenger handed out a penny to him on the farther side.
“How enchantingly quaint!” she cried. “William, you can go home; I shall return by the public ferry.”
William looked surprised but only replied, “Very good, ma’am.”
On warm summer afternoons the tiny square of Mrs. Prettyman’s garden made as delightful a place to sit in as one could wish. There was sunshine on the turf, and a thin shade was cast by the drooping boughs of the plum tree; just enough to shelter old eyes from the glare. When she was very tired with doing her work Mrs. Prettyman would totter out into the garden. She was getting terribly lame now, yet afraid to acknowledge it, knowing, with the desperate wisdom of poverty, that once to give in, very often ended in giving up altogether. So her lameness 45 was ‘blamed on the weather,’ ‘blamed on scrubbing the floor,’ blamed on anything rather than the tragic, incurable fact of old age. This afternoon her rheumatism had been specially bad: she had an inclination to cry out when she rose from her chair, and every step was an effort. Yet the sunshine was tempting; it warmed old and aching bones through and through as no fire could do; and Mrs. Prettyman thought she must make the effort to go out.
She had just arrived at this conclusion, when a tap came to the door.