“Here, here’s a wonderful patent preserving kettle, do you suppose they could use that? And what about these four terrible patent rockers?”
“Oh, Mrs. Madison, I imagine they would be only too delighted! Their idea is to open a regular store, you know, and make the sale permanent. But ought you——”
“I ought to have done it years before! But Doctor Madison—” His widow’s breast rose on a sharp sigh; she lost the words for a second. “Doctor Madison and I never lived here, you know,” she resumed. “And I stayed abroad for years after his death, when Merle was a baby. And for a long time I was like a person dazed—” She stopped.
“I had my work,” she resumed, after a pause. “It saved my reason, I think. Perhaps—perhaps I went into it too hard. But I had to have—to do—something! My grandparents died and left me this place and the Beachaways’ place, but I’ve had no time for housekeeping!”
“I should think not, indeed!” Miss Frothingham said, timidly respectful.
These fingers, that could cleave so neatly into the very stronghold of life, that could touch so boldly hearts that still pulsated and lungs that still were fanned by breath, were they to count silver spoons and quilt comforters?
The governess felt a little impressed; even a little touched. She did not often see her employer in this mood. Kind, just, reasonable, interested, capable, good, Doctor Madison always was. But this was something more.
“I had no intention of becoming rich, of being—successful!” the older woman added presently, in a dreamy tone. She was sitting with the great spread of a brocaded robe across her knee. Her eyes were absent.
“All the more fun!” Miss Frothingham said youthfully.
“I was alone—” Mary Madison said drearily and quietly, in a low tone, as if to herself. And in the three words the younger caught a glimpse of all the tragedy and loneliness of widowhood. “Doctor Madison was so wise,” she began again. “I’ve always thought that if he had lived my life would have been different.”