"Yes, Stephen; I can bear your reproof, for I am too hot-headed. I need a strong pull in the opposite direction to set me right."
The sound of domestics astir suggested employment, and Mrs. Montgomery set forth to superintend affairs with more concern than the real mistress. In fact, there had been a sad want of attention to matters in general. There was an apparent lack of system and good management that only such an one as Mrs. Montgomery could set right.
"I want you to do it this way," was her order, and it was done.
An untidy chambermaid had been dismissed, and the cook was given her choice to retrench in the enormous waste or find a new field for such extravagance.
It was indeed surprising what a change had been wrought during Mrs.
Montgomery's first week at "Sunnybank."
"And to think of her coming from such charitable motives. The woman is a host in herself." Such was Mr. Verne's comment as he began to see how affairs were managed on the reconstruction plan, when even the parlor seemed to admit the beneficial change.
"I shall have to attend a meeting of the Board of Trade this evening; and thinking it would be dull here, I asked Mr. Lawson to come in and bring Lottie. You know the poor child idolizes him, and it is a shame to keep him from her."
"How kind of you, Stephen. I shall be delighted to see Lottie; she is a sweet child. It really does me good to see the young man pet his little charge and minister to her wants with the delicacy of a woman. I tell you there are few men that will compare with Phillip Lawson."
Mrs. Montgomery was determined that she would let no opportunity escape when she could say a word in her friend's praise. "They will thank me one day for it," said she to herself, as she turned leisurely towards a pot of heliotrope and stood inhaling the sweet fragrance.
"The Board of Trade to-night. No rest for the overwrought brain! What a pity that our women, Instead of decking themselves out for hours before a life-sized mirror, and when arrayed like peacocks amble into drawing-rooms or conservatories to listen for so many hours to the idiotic, half-formed expressions of the semi-monkeys who answer to the fashionable appellation of dudes, should not give themselves some fit employment. Oh, dear me! thank Heaven I'm not a society woman, and still better, that none of my family can lay claim to the title."