“Why, what’s all this?” said the priest good-humoredly. “Is that Lena Schaefer? You haven’t been making Lena cry, Mrs. Kellar?”
“The lazy good-for-nothing!” cried Mrs. Kellar. “Will tears pick up the coals, I should like to know?”
“Not so well as a pair of hands,” said Mr. Clare cheerfully. “Come, Miss Lena, since this is to be my room, I have the best right to work in it, haven’t I?”
He picked up the thin, light form as if she had been a child, and set her, literally, to dry off, in the rocking-chair, which she only half filled, and whence, overcome with amazement, she peeped from under the shadow of her apron at the handsome gentleman on his knees remedying the results of her carelessness.
“It’s a poor welcome for you, Mr. Clare,” said Frau Kellar. “I came in to see if everything was in order, and found the fire nearly gone out; so I rang for Lena, as these rooms are her business, and the silly thing, before she could get the coal on the fire, dropped the hod, and then couldn’t do nothing but cry.”
As she explained, she had made a futile effort to assist in remedying the evil, which Mr. Clare had silently but decidedly refused.
“Sure, I suppose she came in such haste that her hand shook. Isn’t it right I am, Lena?”
“The bell rang so loud it frightened me,” said Lena, who had been making a brave struggle for self-control. “I didn’t forget the fire, Father; it was only that I didn’t put on quite enough coal.”
“And ain’t the best of us liable to errors of judgment?” said the priest. “Give the child leave to run away now, Mrs. Kellar, and bathe her eyes. She’ll feel better when she’s had her dinner.”
“I’d like to sweep up the dust for you, sir,” said the girl, with a look of appealing confidence, which made her face, despite its homeliness and grimy tear-stains, not absolutely unattractive.