"Will she expect to come to our table, aunt Miriam?" said Fleda when they had walked a little way.
"No--she will not expect that--but Barby will want a different kind of managing from those Irish women of yours. She won't bear to be spoken to in a way that don't suit her notions of what she thinks she deserves; and perhaps your aunt and uncle will think her notions rather high--I don't know."
"There is no difficulty with aunt Lucy," said Fleda;--"and I guess I can manage uncle Rolf--I'll try. I like her very much."
"Barby is very poor," said Mrs. Plumfield; "she has nothing but her own earnings to support herself and her old mother, and now I suppose her sister and her child; for Hetty is a poor thing--never did much, and now I suppose does nothing."
"Are those Finns poor, aunt Miriam?"
"O no--not at all--they are very well off."
"So I thought--they seemed to have plenty of everything, and silver spoons and all. But why then do they go out to work?"
"They are a little too fond of getting money I expect," said aunt Miriam. "And they are a queer sort of people rather--the mother is queer and the children are queer--they ain't like other folks exactly--never were."
"I am very glad we are to have Barby instead of that Lucy Finn," said Fleda. "O aunt Miriam! you can't think how much easier my heart feels."
"Poor child!" said aunt Miriam looking at her. "But it isn't best, Fleda, to have things work too smooth in this world."