"But can she get the place for you?" inquired Neal, who was prompt at weighing probabilities and improbabilities in his mind.
"It is in this way. The present housekeeper has been there a good while, and is much respected by the masters, and they have asked her to look out for somebody to take her place. My sister's intimate with her, and has spoken to her about me."
"Why is she going to leave, herself?" questioned Neal, liking to come to the bottom of everything.
Watton laughed. "She is going to begin life on her own score: she's about to be married. I think it's rather venturesome those middle-aged persons marrying: I wouldn't, I know."
"Wait until you are asked," returned Neal, not over gallantly.
"I have been asked more than once in my life," said Watton. "But I didn't see my way clear. It's all a venture. A good many risk it, and a few don't. I'd rather be one of the few. My goodness! how it rains!"
"When do you leave here?"
"When I get a comfortable place. Miss Bettina said I was not to hurry. It isn't as if I were leaving for any fault, or to make room for another. She doesn't like my leaving at all, you know."
Neal nodded. "I heard her grumbling to the doctor, like anything, about it. She talks loud, and one can't shut one's ears at will."
"She need not grumble to the doctor. It is not his fault. He spoke to me himself, saying how sorry he was to part with me, but he could not help it. 'He had had a severe loss of money,' he said, which rendered it necessary that he should alter the rate of his expenditure. I wonder," added Watton, musingly, "how he came to lose it?"