"I thank you, Mrs. Davis." The superintendent bowed in his stateliest manner. "I do my best—I try always to do my best. Old people are trying, we all know."
The president looked up from her perusal of the by-laws.
"Suppose we have the old lady in," she said. "Mr. McCaleb, will you send for Mrs. Walker?"
The old lady held her head haughtily as she walked into the handsomely furnished office. The president, mindful of her official capacity, looked severely upon Mrs. Walker—Sarah Lucinda Walker, according to the cramped signature of the home's register, widow, native of Maine, aged sixty-seven on her entrance into the home five years ago. And Mrs. Walker—a miracle of aged neatness, trim, straight, little, in her somber black and immaculate cap—looked severely back.
"Be seated, Mrs. Walker," said the president.
"Thank you." Mrs. Walker crossed with a formal "Good morning, ladies," and took the chair indicated.
"Now, Mr. McCaleb, if you please——" said the president.
The superintendent rose.
"Ladies," he began with a solemnity that made the offender quake within, though outwardly she was calm as the president herself, "it is with positive pain that I have to report to you the case of Mrs. Sarah Lucinda Walker. It is now fully three months since I began to labor with her—three months since I warned her of this very thing that has come to pass, an investigation by your honorable board. On the 9th of January"—he glanced methodically at a note-book—"I sent her a copy of the by-laws, with the section referring to insubordination underscored in red ink. On the 23d I made a personal call upon her, and sought to convince her how impossible it was that such conduct could be tolerated. On February 7th I publicly reprimanded her. On the 13th—five days ago—I informed her that, after considering it prayerfully, I had laid the matter before your honorable body, and that she should hold herself in readiness to be summoned before you to meet the following charges:
"First, insubordination; second, breaking Rule VIII of the house regulations; third, taking food from the table; fourth, disturbing neighbors in early morning; and fifth, defacing the building."