Flora shook her head. "There ain't no use listenin' to music. There ain't no use in anything. You get up in the morning and button your boots. Well, you gotta do it the next day," Flora said, with staring eyes, "an' the next. An' the next. What's the use? There's no use." But after serving her young lady with a somewhat sketchy luncheon, she did go into the other room, and after helping to start the dying fire, crouched on the floor, her head against the piano, and listened to Fred's friendly drumming.
"Trouble with you," said Frederica, looking down at the crouching figure, "is that you've nothing to do that you care awfully about doing."
Flora was silent, and by and by Fred forgot her, for, velvet-footed, through the fog, the hour when Howard should arrive came nearer, and her own life grew so vivid that the moping brown woman ceased to exist for her—except, indeed, for momentary pangs of fear that Flora would make some blunder—roast the duck a minute too long, or forget to put pieces of orange on the sizzling breast just before serving it!
He had said he would come at five. But it was nearly six before she heard the car panting in the road. She opened the door, and, holding a candle above her head, told him he needn't expect anything so swell as a garage. "Just run her up under that big chestnut!" Then she put the candle down on the porch, and went out to help him lift the top, for the moisture was dripping like rain from the branches.
"But the fog is clearing," she said, with satisfaction. She did not add that she had been anxious at the idea of his poking back on the wood road in the thick mist. Such concern was an absolutely new sensation to Frederica. She had never in all her life felt anxious about anybody!
The top up, they went into the fire-lit room, warm and fragrant and comfortable, with the candles burning on the mantelpiece on either side of the learned books. The supper was a great success. Flora had "come to life," and the duck was perfect; indeed, she even brightened, for an instant, under Mr. Maitland's appreciation: "Flora, I take off my hat to that duck. You are a bully cook!"
"She is!" Fred said, heartily. But Flora's face gloomed again.
"Bully!" Howard repeated. His vocabulary was never very large, and hunger made it smaller than usual. He was, however, able to tell Fred that he had missed Laura in Philadelphia.
"Strikes me she's gadding about a good deal; she's gone to Boston. What's the clue?"
"Just a good time. Lolly is rather young still, you know," Fred excused her. Howard made no comment, and she had an uncomfortable feeling that he did not appreciate Laura. "I pretty nearly went with her, myself!" she declared, boldly. She wasn't going to have even Howard think Laura was frivolous! "She's the sweetest thing going," she said.