“I guess this will do,” he said at last, shaking out one which was minus one button only. “She’ll be sure to spy that vacant spot,” he went on dubiously. “Where’s that old beldame to sew it on? Hannah! fairy, sylph, beauty, come up here!”
There was no sound from the rooms below. With a quick ejaculation he threw the coat over his arm and went down the staircase two steps at a time. Opening the doors of a dull dining room and a still more dull and comfortless drawing room he looked in to find them tenantless.
“Must be in her lowest den,” he said, vaulting like a boy down a narrower flight of stairs leading to a kitchen. There indeed he found an old woman groveling over a fire.
“Hannah,” he shouted, holding his coat toward her. “There’s a button gone, will you sew on another?”
“Eh, what’s that ye said, Mr. Brian?” queried the old woman. “A button? Yes indeed, ye shall have it; just ye wait till I get my workbasket,” and she started to leave the kitchen, but he restrained her with an impatient, “Where is it?”
“In the right top-hand corner of my second drawer, me boy, if ye’ll be so kind. Hannah’s limbs is gettin’ old.”
He shook off the affectionate hand she laid on his shoulder and leaped upstairs again. When he returned with her basket the old woman slowly lifted the cover. “Did ye no bring the thimble?” she asked in surprise.
“No—confound the thimble! Why don’t you keep it in your basket?”
“Because I always keeps it in the left-hand corner of the window,” she answered mildly, “behind the picture of your sainted father——” but Dr. Camperdown was gone, springing up the steps again in a state of desperate hurry.
“If you don’t sew that button on in five minutes,” he vociferated in her ear when he came back, “I’ll turn you out of the house to-morrow.”