"Miss Fraile," she said, on the first occasion for speech that presented itself; "my brother Hilary has asked me to put a proposition to you on his behalf. What would you say to coming here and living with him as his housekeeper and having an eye on those two boys, until—well, say till it is time for them to go off to a boarding-school?"
This direct manner of approach was perhaps the one best calculated to win Miss Fraile, who after a very little parley, assented to the proposition. She was a very young and fragile-looking woman, having but lately passed her thirtieth birthday, but she was in reality quite as able to take care of herself as the next person, if not, indeed, a great deal more so. She was the very antithesis, as the boys presently discovered, of Aunt Selina, being all smiles and cordiality on the outside and about as hard as tempered steel when you got a little below the surface, in spite of her smiles, and in spite, moreover, of her really unusual and perfectly sincere piety.
"I think," went on Aunt Selina rather magnificently, after the main point had been gained, "that in the matter of the stipend there will be no difficulty at all. You will find my brother entirely liberal in such matters." Here she named a sum, Miss Fraile instantly decided that it would not do, and proceeded after her own fashion to the work of raising her opponent's bid.
"How very good of him," she murmured, letting her eyes fall to the carpet. "All of our family have unfortunately been obliged to devote so much thought and attention to money matters since our dear father's death left us so badly off. Let me see.... I suppose my duties here would take up very nearly all my time, would they not?"
"I do not know.... I daresay...."
"Exactly; one has to look so far ahead in all these matters, does one not? I mean, that looking after this great house and those two dear boys and Hilary himself would not leave me much time for anything like music lessons, would it? Perhaps you did not know that I gave music lessons at home?... Money is such a bother—! I suppose I should scarcely have time to practise here myself, with one thing and another—household affairs do pile up so, do they not?—without thinking of lessons or anything of that sort; yet I daresay I should somehow be able to ... to make it up, that is, if—"
"How much more would you need?" asked Aunt Selina bluntly.
Miss Fraile named a sum half as large again as the one previously mentioned, but Aunt Selina, stifling a gasp, clinched the matter there.
After the funeral Miss Fraile returned to her home in semi-rural Pennsylvania "to collect my traps" as she brightly put it, and a week or so later came back to New Haven and settled down in her new position. The boys on the whole liked their Aunt Agatha, though even their exuberant boyish natures occasionally found her cheerfulness a little oppressive, and she certainly did very well for them and for their father. She ordered the meals, saw to the housework, arranged the flowers, dusted the bric-à-brac with her own hands, did most of the mending and presided at the head of the table at meals, fairly radiating peace and cheer.
Hilary was a little appalled, to be sure, when she would burst on him on his returning to the house of an evening with a pair of warmed slippers in her hand and a musical little peal of laughter on her lips, but he did not have to see much of her, and besides, he so thoroughly approved of her.