From that time he visited her regularly every Sunday, and it was soon decided that they should be married in season to enable her to pack the fall butter. This decision she, for sometime, delayed to communicate to Emily, from sheer bashfulness. She could not, she said, when she at last had wrought herself up to what appeared to her the very pinnacle of boldness, make up her mind to tell her before, for the life of her, but then, she did suppose that Simon kind of had her promise that she would be married to him in just three weeks from the next Sunday.
Emily immediately called on her mother to communicate to her the melancholy information. Mrs. Anderson saw that these were what might be termed "minor trials," for her daughter in prospective. She hoped that she would be discreet enough not to allow them to be magnified into what might appropriately be called major trials.
"Don't you think, mother," said Emily, "that you can manage to find, me a girl as good as Pedy?"
"I think it will be impossible. Pedy is a kind of rara avis in all that appertains to housekeeping. She excels in everything. You will be obliged now to limit your expectations. If you can obtain a girl who knows how to cook well, it is the best you can hope to do. Even that, I am afraid, will prove very difficult."
"It appears to me that if girls who are obliged to work for a living understood what was for their good, they would be at more pains to inform themselves relative to what is expected of them."
"A great difficulty lies in the want of competent teachers. Such things are not known by instinct; and experience, though a good, is a slow teacher."
"If I have got to stay in the kitchen all the time to teach a girl,
I may as well do the work myself."
"I will do the best I can for you, but you must not expect me to find you a girl who will fill Pedy's place, and do not, for your own sake—leaving George out of the question—be too afraid of the kitchen."
Mrs. Anderson fulfilled the promise she made her daughter. She did her best, and felt tolerably well satisfied at being able to find a girl who had done the cooking in a large family in the country for more than a year.
Pedy Breck left Mrs. Brenton on Saturday after tea, and Deborah Leach took her place on Monday morning. Emily gave her a few general directions and as usual, seated herself in the parlour with her books, her music, and her embroidery, as resources against ennui. Deborah, also, was abundantly provided with the means to keep her out of idleness. She said to herself, after receiving the directions from Emily, that she "guessed there wouldn't be time for much grass to grow under her feet that day."