"She was so sorry she hadn't knowed," Miss Flora said "she'd ha' had some cakes made that maybe they could have eaten, but the bread was dry; and the cheese wa'n't as good somehow as the last one they cut; maybe Miss Ringgan would prefer a piece of newer made, if she liked it; and she hadn't had good luck with her preserves last summer the most of 'em had fomented she thought it was the damp weather; but there was some stewed pears that maybe she would be so good as to approve and there was some ham! whatever else it was, it was hot!"
It was impossible it was impossible, to do dishonour to all this hospitality and kindness and pride that was brought out for them. Early or late, they must eat, in mere gratitude. The difficulty was to avoid eating everything. Hugh and Fleda managed to compound the matter with each other, one taking the cake and pears, and the other the ham and cheese. In the midst of all this overflow of goodwill, Fleda bethought her to ask if Miss Flora knew of any girl or woman that would go out to service. Miss Flora took the matter into grave consideration as soon as her anxiety on the subject of their cups of tea had subsided. She did not commit herself, but thought it possible that one of the Finns might be willing to go out.
"Where do they live?"
"It's a not far from Queechy Run," said the doctor, whose now and then hesitation in the midst of his speech was never for want of a thought, but simply and merely for the best words to clothe it in.
"Is it in our way to-night?"
He could make it so, the doctor said, with pleasure, for it would give him permission to gallant them a little further.
They had several miles yet to go, and the sun went down as they were passing through Queechy Run. Under that still, cool, clear, autumn sky, Fleda would have enjoyed the ride very much, but that her unfulfilled errand was weighing upon her, and she feared her aunt and uncle might want her services before she could be at home. Still, late as it was, she determined to stop for a minute at Mrs. Finn's, and go home with a clear conscience. At her door, and not till there, the doctor was prevailed upon to part company, the rest of the way being perfectly plain.
Mrs. Finn's house was a great unprepossessing building, washed and dried by the rain and sun into a dark, dingy colour, the only one that had ever supplanted the original hue of the freshsawn boards. This, indeed, was not an uncommon thing in the country; near all the houses of the Deepwater settlement were in the same case. Fleda went up a flight of steps to what seemed the front door, but the girl that answered her knock led her down them again, and round to a lower entrance on the other side. This introduced Fleda to a large ground-floor apartment, probably the common room of the family, with the large kitchen fireplace, and flagged hearth, and wall cupboards, and the only furniture, the usual red backed splinter chairs and wooden table. A woman standing before the fire with a broom in her hand, answered Fleda's inclination with a saturnine nod of the head, and, fetching one of the red-backs from the wall, bade her "sit down."
Poor Fleda's nerves bade her "go away." The people looked like their house. The principal woman, who remained standing, broom in hand, to hear Fleda's business, was, in good truth, a dark personage her head covered with black hair, her person with a dingy black calico, and a sullen cloud lowering over her eye. At the corner of the fireplace was an old woman, laid by in an easy-chair; disabled, it was plain, not from mental but bodily infirmity; for her face had a cast of mischief which could not stand with the innocence of second childhood. At the other corner sat an elderly woman sewing, with tokens of her trade for yards on the floor around her. Back at the far side of the room, a young man was eating his supper at the table, alone; and under the table, on the floor, the enormous family bread-trough was unwontedly filled with the sewing-woman's child, which had with superhuman efforts crawled into it, and lay kicking and crowing in delight at its new cradle. Fleda did not know how to enter upon her business.
"I have been looking," she began, "for a person who is willing to go out to work. Miss Flora Quackenboss told me perhaps I might find somebody here."