“The Dunstan woman.”
“Oh, you've seen her, then?”
“Not to speak of. She was curled up like a worm, and had her face swathed up like a harem, and talked like the croak of a frog. And she's been putting flowers on my breakfast table,” he concluded with the accents of one detailing an intolerable outrage.
“What of it?” inquired the surprised agent.
“What of it! Flowers cost money, don't they?”
“Have you received any bill for flowers yet?”
“I've received bills for brooms, mops, pails, towels, cups, plates, nails, tacks, picture hangers, baking tins, soap, and God knows what all,” replied Mr. Morse in a breathless and ferocious voice.
“Yes? And which of those do you find in the floral catalogues?” queried the Bonnie Lassie interestedly. “If you want to know,” she added as the Meanest Man struggled for competent utterance, “those flowers came from your own back yard. Look at it some time. You'll be pleased.”
The Meanest Man was pleased when he looked, so pleased that one fresh and glorious June day when he should by the known regimen of his life have been at the Y. M. C. A. (supposedly reading) he came home early to putter about among the pansies. At the moment of his arrival Molly Dunstan, her work finished and her shawl laid aside, was standing in her neat, close-fitting black dress, inside the area railing, brooding with deep eyes over the glad flush of summer which glorified Our Square, and thinking, if the unromantic truth must be told, of the little place up near White Plains where her ducks and chickens would have been so happy and productive if D. Wiggett (she shivered) hadn't kept the place and her money too. The owner of the house stood regarding her with surprise and disfavor. “What are you doing here?” he barked.
With a startled jump, Molly came out of her brown study and returned the natural but undiplomatic answer: “I'm the housekeeper.”