All in vain. Squire Dudley, the heiress’ hope having vanished, cursed his luck audibly, but refused to attempt to mend it.
“Send them to school, indeed,” he said to Mrs. Ormson, the second Mrs. Dudley’s eldest sister—“send them to school! I have trouble enough now to make both ends meet, without, increasing my expenses.”
“Why do you not marry, then?” she asked; in reply to which inquiry Arthur Dudley only shook his head. He had been disappointed in his matrimonial schemes, and the world just then looked very black to him.
“Unless a wife brought something in her hand towards keeping herself,” he observed at length, “I am afraid that remedy would prove worse than the disease.”
“Nonsense!” retorted Mrs. Ormson, decidedly. “A wife would very soon set things to rights, prevent waste, see that the people you employ did their duty, and keep the children in order. You want a managing woman at the head of your establishment. If my hands were not so tied, I would remain and look after matters for you myself.”
“I wish you would,” sighed Arthur; and he was in earnest; for there were two people on earth in whom he believed—one, Mrs. Ormson, “a most superior woman,” and the other an old housekeeper who had lived at Berrie Down Hollow in the better days, when Mrs. Dudley No. 1 was alive, who had packed up and departed when the advent of Mrs. Dudley No. 2 was announced, but who still came occasionally to see him, and lament over “Master Arthur’s evil fortune in having all those owdacious boys and girls cast like mites into the family treasury.”
“You are quite right, Piggott,” said Mrs. Ormson, to whom, in a moment of forgetfulness, the woman once confided this opinion; “for the children are indeed a widow’s mites. Your remark does credit alike to your wit and to your scriptural knowledge.”
“I reads my Bible, mum,” observed Piggott, who had a secret distrust of Mrs. Ormson.
“A very proper thing for a person in your station,” returned the lady. “I always like servants who read their Bible. It teaches them honesty, and prevents their striving to be equal with their masters and mistresses. Reading the Scriptures has made you the invaluable woman you are, Piggott. I only wish poor Mr. Arthur had some one like you to manage his house for him. Do you think he could not make it worth your while to——?”
“Thank you, mum,” interrupted Mrs. Piggott, hastily; “but I would rather be excused. Master Arthur, mum, was good enough to wish me to come and take the management, after his step-mamma’s marriage; but a parcel of young children is a thing as I never was accustomed to.” And although Mrs. Piggott was too polite to add anything in disparagement of Mrs. Ormson’s nephews and nieces, still there was a look in her face which that lady rightly interpreted to mean, “More especially such a set of romping, mischievous, riotous, ill-conditioned young imps as there are in this house.”