“Where’s mother?” inquired Jim, as he hung his hat on the accustomed nail.
“She went down to the village,” said Fanny, turning her back on the window with suspicious haste. “There was a meeting of the sewing society at Mrs. Daggett’s.”
“Good Lord!” exclaimed Jim. “What an opportunity!”
“Opportunity?” echoed Fanny vaguely.
“Yes; for talking it over. Can’t you imagine the clack of tongues; the ‘I says to her,’ and ‘she told me,’ and ‘what do you think!’”
“Don’t be sarcastic and disagreeable, Jim,” advised Fanny, with some heat. “When you think of it, it is a wonder—that girl coming here the way she did; buying out the fair, just as everybody was discouraged over it. And now—”
“How do you explain it, Fan?” asked her brother.
“Explain it? I can’t explain it. Nobody seems to know anything about her, except that she’s from Boston and seems to have heaps of money.”
Jim was wiping his hands on the roller-towel behind the door.
“I had a chance to annex a little more of Miss Orr’s money today,” he observed grimly. “But I haven’t made up my mind yet whether to do it, or not.”