"You can receive the rent and forward it to me," she said, "when the place is let. I must have time," she said, with a little tremble in her voice, "to arrange and put away my things." Mr. Macfarlane was amused by her simple belief in the production of a desirable tenant at a moment's notice.
He laughed a little. "It will take a little time, Mrs. Dorriman, to get just the person you want; some weeks at any rate. A step like this cannot be taken in a hurry—you yourself will require time."
"Yes, if I can get it," she rejoined, speaking her thought aloud.
"Come and have some luncheon with my wife," he said kindly; "she will make you welcome, I know."
Mrs. Dorriman accepted the proffered kindness, and followed him into the comfortable room where Mrs. Macfarlane was found with five children; who were introduced and dismissed in a breath.
Mrs. Macfarlane was one of those pleasant cheerful kindly women who see the sunny side of life most. She had been a petted daughter, was an idolized wife, and an adored mother. Her husband carried all his perplexities and all his troubles to her, and by so doing lightened them. She had a keen, shrewd way of looking at things, and was so wrapt up in her husband and children that she had no time for outside friendships. Her chief fault (as imperfection in some shape is but human) was her intolerance of imaginary woes, and want of reality in any and every shape.
She thought life was made so unnecessarily hard, not by real circumstances, but by the way those circumstances were dealt with.
She saw no hardship, where health and strength existed, in self-denial for those who were loved. She was completely out of sympathy with people who suffered acutely from what they falsely considered a loss of dignity. She had seven children, a very moderate income, and two servants. If those servants were busy or out, or hard at work, she opened her own front door and saw no harm in it; just as on Sunday she took the milk in when her servants were in church. To say that she had arrived at doing this without some trouble would be untrue, because all her neighbours thought her dreadfully wanting in that high standard of gentility that was their own.
But no woman is consistent without having a certain power and influence amongst her fellows. She had splendid health, and her powers of repartee were so well known that no one cared to lay themselves open to an answer—her absence of ill-health giving her a command of temper that always placed her in an advantageous position.
She was extremely sorry for Mrs. Dorriman: to be alone as she was, to have to face the world without any backbone (which was her way of putting it) was to her, like expecting a fish to swim deprived of its fins.