“You do so much adapting that I’m getting afraid of you.”
“Don’t.” She put his newspaper one side and kissed him, and he submitted to the caress patiently, his eyes still following the paragraph on which they had been fixed.
“The two women I really feel at home with,” she continued musingly, “are the clergyman’s wife, who is just a dear, poor soul! and a living reproach to everyone, and Sarah Latimer. I wonder that you never told me about her, Richard.”
“Sarah Latimer! I always thought she was a stick,” said Richard, glancing up from the newspaper.
“Well, she is not, at all; at any rate, she’s only the least little bit stick-y. Oh! I suppose if I were at home I mightn’t have taken such a fancy to her, but out here—! and I do think it’s pathetic about her.”
“How on earth you can discover anything pathetic about Sarah Latimer, Bertha, beats me. That long, sandy-haired wisp of a girl! Let me alone; I want to read my paper.”
“No,” she held the paper down with one hand. “It’s really important; do listen to me, Dick! I want to do something for her.”
“You are doing something for her; you have her here morning, noon, and night. She’s forever going about with little Rich and Mary; people will be taking her for my wife some day, you just see if they don’t. I nearly kissed her by mistake for you yesterday; she was right in the way as I came in the door. Now don’t feel jealous!”
“No, I won’t,” said Bertha with indignation. “But look here, Dick! I know she is with us a good deal, but I do want to give her a chance.”
“A chance of what?”