Elinor, one may say, bequeathed her to the Van Ardens. At least she suggested them importunately to Katy. To me she explained, "Katy is a maternal soul, and she can't help taking care of Mercy Van Arden, who is a stray angel in a wicked world and thinks she is a socialist."
We are conservative, peaceful, mid-Westerners in our town, and the only socialists belong to a class that we do not meet nor recognize save by their names in the papers published preliminary to fiery addresses delivered at not very reputable tavern halls. Therefore, to have a cultivated socialist, a young lady of wealth, who regarded her fortune as a "trust," come to live among us was exciting. Her aunt, from whom she had recently inherited her fortune, was well known to us, being a large property owner in the town. She, the late aunt, was not in the least a socialist; on the contrary, we esteemed her a particularly shrewd and merciless adept at a bargain. She had a will of her own; and considering that Miss Mercedes had borne the yoke for ten years, it was generally considered that she had earned her legacy.
Under all these conditions of interest, I admit I was glad enough to see Katy Biff's decent black hat approaching the side door the day after her entrance into the Van Arden family circle.
"Well, Miss Patsy," she began, "I guess you know she's queer; I thought I knew most of the brands of wine and women, as old Judge Howells used to say, but this one beats me! I came 'round to the yard—she's hired the Bateman place, furnished, you know, while the Batemans are towering in Canada, she and her sister, who's a doctor lady. I hope the doctor'll be a kinder balance wheel, but she's got a chore!
"As I was saying, I came 'round the yard, aiming for the kitchen door, when I heard somebody calling, and there she was opening the front door to Nellie Small. Don't you remember Nellie Small? She was the Batemans' waitress for three months—poor young things—and smashed a lot of their nice wedding presents, the other girl told me. She's the kind that always looks so fine and never dusts the hind legs of the table. I wasn't none too pleased at the sight of her, but Miss Van Arden, she was awful polite; took us both right into the parlor and made us set down. I got worried thinking she'd mistook, and I hesitate a minute and then I says:
"'Miss Van Arden, I was going 'round to the kitchen door; I've come to see about the cook's place.'
"'I know,' says she right quick, with a little lift of her pretty brown head. 'I know,' says she, 'you're Mrs. Biff, and you,' says she, smiling so pretty on that Nellie trash, 'you're Miss Small.'
"'I am,' says Nellie, tossing her head.
"So then she begins; and from that beginning, and calling us in that way, you can imagine how she went on. She explained that while she was a poor girl at her aunty's she read a lovely book about an imaginary country called Altruria; and that the gentleman who wrote it didn't think we could do that way in this country; she supposed we couldn't, but she was going to try, and she hoped we would like her and help her. She didn't know much about housekeeping; she had helped her aunty, but it was writing letters and doing errands and dusting brac-a-brac (and she laughed); the only things she knew how to do right well was to dust and to polish jewelry and make tea. But she hoped to learn; and she had got all the machinery she could think of; there was an electric washer and an ironing machine, and a dishwashing machine, and bread and cake machines, and we ought not to need to work more than eight hours a day. She didn't believe really in more than six hours a day, but at first maybe we wouldn't mind eight.