"You used to be very cross on darning afternoons," put in Emmie.
"I am afraid I was. Think of one's clothes never wearing out for forty years! it was enough to reconcile them to the wilderness. I should not be surprised if I rather liked it now. Suppose we take lessons in patching from Miss Faith?"
"I must help too," broke in the child eagerly. "I can mend quite neatly now, Cathy; and I will weed the garden, and grow radishes, and mustard, and cress, and sweep up the hearth, and put on the kettle for Queenie when she comes home tired. Oh I wish Caleb and Molly would come and live with us, and that we could all be happy together."
"Caleb would not like to leave Carlisle, or Molly either; you must be content with me, and only me."
"My dears," interrupted Langley's quiet voice from the door, "it is past eleven, and these night dews are not wholesome for the child; let me beg you to close the window, and leave off talking;" and thus admonished, the little party broke up somewhat hurriedly.
Queenie had interviews with Mr. Logan and Captain Fawcett the next day.
"Well, Miss Marriott, so you are to be my tenant for Briarwood cottage," he said, stopping to speak to her, as they encountered each other in the lane. "My wife was so glad to get the little lassie for a neighbor, that you might almost have made your own terms with us."
"You are very kind not to put difficulties in my way. The rent is so small that I thought we could afford it. It will be quieter than lodgings, and more to ourselves; but it sounds rather ambitious, a home of our own," returned the girl, with a little thrill of excitement. Poor as it was it would be home.
"Suppose we go and have a look at it," proposed Captain Fawcett in his curt, business-like way. "It is in miserable need of repairs, I know; that last tenant of mine let it go to rack and ruin. I will go over to Hargrave's and get the key. Oh, there's the Vicar crossing over to speak to you; I can safely leave him with you a minute."
"I must shake hands with my new school-mistress," said Mr. Logan, beaming on her through his spectacles. "So you have talked us all over, and got your own way; well, well, everything is for the best, of course; but to have a young lady, a clergyman's daughter too, teaching in that crazy little building yonder is a strange sight to me."