“How was it you did not have references with her, Mrs. Cramp?”
“That donkey of an agent never asked for any,” retorted she. “He was thrown off his guard, he says, by her sending him the first month’s rent in advance, and telling him she had only one or two old servants, and no children, and the furniture would be as much cared for as if it were made of gold. Last night she sends to me the advance rent for next month, though it’s not due for two days yet, and that has fluttered me, I can tell you, Mr. Benjamin, for I was hoping she wouldn’t pay, and that I might be able to get her out. I am now going there with the receipt, and to try again to get to see her: the woman who left the money never waited for one. Afraid of being catechised, I take it.”
Picking up her green skirts she sailed down the road. Coralie Fontaine was leaning over the little gate, and opened it as we approached. A beautiful cashmere shawl, all scarlet and gold, contrasted with her white dress, and her drooping gold ear-drops glittered in the autumn sun. She made a dainty picture, and I saw Dr. Benjamin’s enraptured eyes meet hers. If they were not over head and ears in love with one another, never you trust me again.
“Mrs. Cramp is in a way,” cried Coralie, as we strolled with her up the garden, amidst its old-fashioned flowers, all bloom and sweetness. “I’m sure that black lady is as good as a play to us.”
“News came to me this morning from my sister,” said Benjamin. “She and the Archdeacon are coming home; he has not been well, and has six months’ leave of absence.”
“Do they bring the children?” asked Coralie.
“As if they’d leave them! Why, Coralie, those two small damsels are the very light of Margaret’s eyes—to judge by her letters; and of Sale’s too, I shouldn’t wonder. Margaret asks me to take lodgings for them. I think Mrs. Boughton’s might be large enough—where Sale lodged in the old days.”
“Lodgings!” indignantly exclaimed Coralie. “I do think you Europeans, you English, are the most inhospitable race on the face of the earth! Your only sister, whom you have not seen for years, of whom you are very fond, is coming back to her native place with her husband and children for a temporary stay, and you can talk of putting them into lodgings? For shame, Benjamin!”
“But what else am I to do?” questioned he, good-humouredly laughing at her. “I have only one bedroom and one sitting-room of my own, the two about as large as a good-sized clothes-closet; I cannot invite a man and his wife and two children to share them, and he an archdeacon! There wouldn’t be space to turn round in.”
“Let them come here,” said Coralie.