“That’s true. Perhaps it is my duty to do it,” said Miss Cornelia with a sigh. “Well, I’ll have to talk it over with Mr. Elliott. So don’t say anything about it just yet. Take another doughnut, dearie.”
Una took it and ate it with a better appetite.
“I’m very fond of doughnuts,” she confessed “Aunt Martha never makes any. But Miss Susan at Ingleside does, and sometimes she lets us have a plateful in Rainbow Valley. Do you know what I do when I’m hungry for doughnuts and can’t get any, Mrs. Elliott?”
“No, dearie. What?”
“I get out mother’s old cook book and read the doughnut recipe—and the other recipes. They sound so nice. I always do that when I’m hungry—especially after we’ve had ditto for dinner. Then I read the fried chicken and the roast goose recipes. Mother could make all those nice things.”
“Those manse children will starve to death yet if Mr. Meredith doesn’t get married,” Miss Cornelia told her husband indignantly after Una had gone. “And he won’t—and what’s to be done? And shall we take this Mary-creature, Marshall?”
“Yes, take her,” said Marshall laconically.
“Just like a man,” said his wife, despairingly. “‘Take her’—as if that was all. There are a hundred things to be considered, believe me.”
“Take her—and we’ll consider them afterwards, Cornelia,” said her husband.
In the end Miss Cornelia did take her and went up to announce her decision to the Ingleside people first.