She thought that one servant might do if they put out the washing. Samuel looked dubious for a moment, seeing himself a henpecked husband, and then that twinkle came again into his wholesome eye.
“Before we decide, m’am, I want ter show you what I got in that there basket. Me an’ the basket be inseparable.”
She preceded him into the dining-room, her shoulders high and her nose uplifted. She stood for some moments staring at the contents of the basket, the basket’s owner, and the basket’s guardian staring at her. Slowly her face grew rigid. She shook her head once. She strove to speak, swallowed hard and then gasped;
“How dast you presume, Samuel Jessup!”
Samuel winked at the guardian of the basket and chuckled soft and low. But then he realized that he really wanted a wife, a companion in his old age, a mistress for the snug little home, and now there was but one candidate left. To be sure he might find some one outside the Home, but he had wanted in truth to share all that he had—the basket not excepted—with one who had tasted as he had the well buttered bread of charity in an old folks’ home. Soberly he went back to the private room, and Mrs. Young came drifting leisurely in to him. She congratulated herself on being the last. She wanted never to be twitted with having failed to give the others every possible chance, and she knew that had she entered the private room first the result would have been the same. She would be the wife selected by Mr. Jessup if she wanted him. A woman with real charm for old men, a woman who could have graced many a home in her lazy, yet pleasingly frivolous ways, she felt that Samuel could not resist her if she chose to throw her charm around him.
“This is a very ridiculous position,” she began, with a quavering little trill of laughter. “I never went a-seekin’ a man before. They always sought me.”
This was more than Samuel’s natural gallantry could withstand. He took her small lean fingers in his and drew her down beside him on the couch. Her fingers twined around his hand. She wore jewels—relics of bygone splendors—which seemed pitifully out of keeping with her present state. To Samuel they told a long, familiar story, and sent a feeling of pity out from him to her.
“Mis’ Young,” he said gently. “I am jest as much obliged to all of you folks fer seein’ me as I kin be.”
“To us all?” she asked and lifted her eyes.
They had been very fine blue eyes once and now they were bright in spite of their puffy lids. And her thin hair, parted simply in the middle, was more becoming than the false front had been. He wondered that she had no gray hairs, but was too straightforward himself to suspect the deception. What a very pretty woman she still was, and, with that not displeasing girlish attempt at flirtation, how exceedingly feminine!