Sunday morning Mrs. Brown asked me to join her and Miss Arnold for breakfast They were both in slippers and dressing-gowns. We boiled the coffee and set the table with doughnuts and sweet cakes, which Miss Arnold kept in a paper bag in her room.
"I hardly ever eat, except between meals," she explained. "A nibble of cake or candy is as much as I can manage, my digestion is so poor."
"Ever since Brown died," the widow responded, "I've had my meals just the same as though he were here. All I want," she went on, as we seated our
selves and exchanged courtesies in passing the bread and butter, "all I want is somebody to be kind to me. I've got a young niece that I've tried to have with me. I wrote to her and says: 'Your auntie's heart's just crying out for you!' And I told her I'd leave her all I've got. But she said she didn't feel like she could come."
As soon as breakfast is over the mundane member of the household starts off on a day's round of visits. When the screen door has shut upon her slender silhouette, Mrs. Brown settles down for a chat. She takes out the brush and comb, unbraids her silver locks and arranges them while she talks.
"Miss Arnold's always on the go; she's awful nervous. These society people aren't happy. Life's not all pleasure for them. You can be sure they have their ups and downs like the rest of us."
"I guess that's likely," is my response.
"They don't tell the truth always, in the first place. They say there's got to be deceit in society, and that these stylish people pretend all sorts of things. Well, then, all I say is," and she pricks the comb into the brush with emphasis, "all I say is, you better keep out of society."
She had twisted her gray braids into a coil at the back of her head, and dish-washing is now the order of the day. As we splash and wipe, Mrs. Brown looks at me rather closely. She is getting ready to
speak. I can feel this by a preliminary rattle of her teeth.