To-day, when I had finished doctoring the broilers, I strolled into the house and greeted the great lady. She was a kind, stout, motherly soul—very gorgeous in raiment, very imposing in a white pompadour; her good-natured, round face always looked forth half bewilderedly between the effort of her dressmaker and that of her hairdresser. This time her eyes were frankly wet as she took my hand and patted it.
“And so you’ve lost your dear father,” she said. “And you’ve come home from college—what a pity, my dear! And you’ve been down to Bangor and learned stenography—what a brave girl you are, your father’s own daughter—and you’re selling broilers to the hotel; why not to me, my child?”
Mother’s cheeks were pink with badly suppressed mortification, her eyes sparkled, her lips were on the quivering point.
“Thank you ever so much, Mrs. Hennen,” I interposed, hastily, before mother could say anything, “but the Agonquitt House contracted for them all. Next year——”
“But I must do something for you,” the dear, kind lady blundered on. “It’s all too sad; it’s too like your dear father’s own case. You’ve heard how he had to come back from college to take charge of the farm when his father had the stroke, and he—your father, I mean, dear, not your grandfather—had so wanted to be——”
“Of course Ellen knows all about that,” interrupted mother, icily. “And I would have done anything to spare her the sacrifice”—her voice grew human again—“but——”
“I’m sure she knows everything there is to know already”—Mrs. Hennen beamed, benignly. “And stenography! My, my! Doesn’t it make you feel ignorant, Marietta? And so you’re going to get a position in Bangor or Portland, your mother says, in the fall?”
I nodded. Mrs. Hennen looked at me with an air of silly, puzzled admiration. Suddenly she clapped her hands—the fingers were like little bleached sausages in the tight, white gloves.
“The very thing!” she cried. “You shall be George’s private secretary. His Miss O’Dowd is going to be married in October. The very thing! I’ll speak to him to-night.”
She puffed up, the kind lady, and kept saying, “Not a word, not a word; I won’t hear a word against it; not a word, Marietta, not one, Ellen, my dear.” And she panted off, leaving mother on the verge of tears, and me quivering with excitement.