"I wouldn't advise you, Mrs. Champney, to count on much assistance from a slip of a thing like that. She's small, and don't look more 'n nine, and—"
"She's over twelve," Mrs. Champney spoke decidedly; "and a girl of twelve ought to be able to help Ann and Hannah in some of their work."
"Well, I ain't no judge of children as there's never been any of late years at Champo." He knew his speech was barbed. Mrs. Champney carefully adjusted her glasses to the thin bridge of her straight white nose. "And if there had been, I shouldn't want to say what they could do or what they couldn't at that age. Take Romanzo, now, he's old enough to work if you watch him; and now he's here I don't deny but what you had the rights of it 'bout my needing an assistant. He takes hold handy if you show him how, and is willing and steady. But two on 'em—I don't know;" he shook his head dubiously; "a growing boy and girl to feed and train and clothe—seems as if—" Octavius paused in the middle of his sentence. He knew his ground, or thought he knew it.
"You said yourself she was small and thin, and I can give her work enough to offset her board. Of course, she will have to go to school, but the tuition is free; and if I pay school taxes, that are increasing every year, I might as well have the benefit of them, if I can, in my own household."
There seemed no refutation needed to meet such an argument, and Octavius retreated another step towards the door.
"A moment more, Octavius," she said blandly, for she knew he was longing to rid her of his presence; "Mr. Emlie has been here this evening and drawn up the deeds conveying my north shore property to the New York syndicate. Mr. Van Ostend has conducted all the negotiations at that end, and I have agreed to the erection of the granite sheds on those particular sites and to the extension of a railroad for the quarries around the head of the lake to The Corners. The syndicate are to control all the quarry interests, and Mr. Van Ostend says in a few years they will assume vast proportions, entailing an outlay of at least three millions. They say there is to be a large electric plant at The Corners, for the mill company have sold them the entire water power at the falls.—I hope Aurora is satisfied with what she has accomplished in so short a time. Champney, I suppose, comes home next month?"
Octavius merely nodded, and withdrew in haste lest his indignation get the upper hand of his discretion. It behooved him to be discreet at this juncture; he must not injure Aurora Googe's cause, which he deemed as righteous a one as ever the sun shone upon, by any injudicious word that might avow his partisanship.
Mrs. Champney smiled again when she saw his precipitous retreat. She had freighted every word with ill will, and knew how to raise his silent resentment to the boiling point. She rose and stepped quickly into the hall.
"Tavy," she called after him as he was closing the door into the back passage. He turned to look at her; she stood in the full light of the hall-lamp. "Just a moment before you go. Did you happen to hear who the priest is who came with the girl?"
"His name was in the ledger. The Colonel said he was a father—Father Honoré, I can't pronounce it, from New York."