It would be an exaggeration to say that Mr. Harding submitted to suffering with sweet resignation. In his best days gentle Mrs. Harding needed all her stock of patience to endure him when he was ill, and his natural proclivities had been reinforced by years of loneliness and self-indulgence. The housekeeper was at her wits’ end, and strongly inclined to resign her situation before the end of the first week.
“Sure, ma’am, he’s that cranky there’s no living with him at all,” she confided to Mrs. Manning, who had brought in a bit of her own delicate cookery to tempt his capricious appetite. “I make his toast and his coffee of a mornin’, and he’s ready to eat me when it’s on his table because the coffee ain’t a-bilin’ and a-sissin’ hot, an’ the egg maybe has been cooked ten seconds longer than his wife used to cook it for him.”
“Let me go in and prepare his table while you get the food ready,” Mrs. Manning suggested. She had waited on just such an invalid once in her lifetime, and had ideas.
“All right, ma’am. I’ll be right glad of a little help, for he do try my patience all to frags.”
Mrs. Manning ran home quickly, and returned bringing a dainty tea cloth and a bouquet of her window flowers in a delicate glass vase, and, going into the dining room, she soon had the little invalid table a very poem of neatness and elegance.
“Mrs. Harrihan never set that table, I’ll be bound,” he said, gruffly, as Mrs. Manning carried it to his bedside.
“Mrs. Harrihan is busy and I am helping her a little,” replied Mrs. Manning, gently. “Let me raise the shade and make you more comfortable for your dinner.”
The window looked out upon the staring high fence, over which the roof and chimney of her own little cottage was visible, and Mr. Harding’s wrinkled face had the grace to gather a flush.
“Are you a widow, ma’am?” he demanded after a few moments, during which she had moved about the untidy room, picking up the morning papers, which he had slung away after reading them, and turning with deft hands the furniture into more home-like positions. Mrs. Harrihan was a good housekeeper but a poor home maker.
“A widow? Dear me, I hope not. Haven’t you seen Mr. Manning frolicing with the children evenings? He comes in the back way, as it saves a block in coming from the station.”