“A picnic!”
Mell’s heart got into her throat at one single bound, and stuck there. Jerome had said something about a picnic.
“What picnic, Miss Josey?”
“The Grange picnic. I’m one of the lady managers, as perhaps you know, and I want you to help me with the tables. Mrs. Rutland cannot go, and there are so few to be depended on.”
“You can depend on me,” said Mell; “I will go with you gladly—gladly spend and be spent for you, who have been always so kind to me.”
Hadn’t she, though? But this was the crowning act of all Miss Josey’s kindness. At this picnic she would see Jerome, and, who knows, perhaps find out his difficulties!
“You are a sweet girl, Mell,” returned Miss Josey, gratified. “So grateful, in a world chock full of the basest ingratitude. I told Miss Rutland, ‘Mell Creecy is the girl to take your place. She knows what to do, and she’ll do it!’”
After this, Mell could scarcely follow the drift of her visitor’s conversation. She was in a ferment of impatience for Miss Josey to be gone, that she might put the finishing touches to a new white dress in readiness for to-morrow’s festivities. But Miss Josey, who couldn’t possibly stay two short minutes when she arrived, did not get off under two mortal hours, or more. This is one of those little peculiarities of the sex, which the last one of them disavows.
Gone at last, Mell went dancing over the house and singing over her work at such a lively rate, that her father put his head in at the chamber-door wanting to know “what she was er makin’ sich er fuss erbout?”