“Is that so?” asked Mrs. Harmon placidly, taking the ticket. “Well, I'm ever so much obliged to you, Mr. Evans. Mr. Evans, Mr. Barker—our new clerk,” she said, introducing them.
Lemuel rose with rustic awkwardness, and shook hands with Mr. Evans, who looked at him with a friendly smile, but said nothing.
“Now Mr. Barker is here, I guess I can get the time.” Mr. Evans said, well, he was glad she could, and went out of the street door. “He's just one of the nicest gentlemen I've got,” continued Mrs. Harmon, following him with her eye as far as she conveniently could without turning her head, “him and his wife both. Ever heard of the Saturday Afternoon?”
“I don't know as I have,” said Lemuel.
“Well, he's one of the editors. It's a kind of a Sunday paper, I guess, for all it don't come out that day. I presume he could go every night in the week to every theatre in town, if he wanted to. I don't know how many tickets he's give me. Some of the ladies seem to think he's always makin' fun of them; but I can't ever feel that way. He used to board with a great friend of mine, him and his wife. They've been with me now ever since Mrs. Hewitt died; she was the one they boarded with before. They say he used to be dreadful easygoing, 'n' 't his wife was all 't saved him. But I guess he's different now. Well, I must go out and see after the lunch. You watch the office, and say just what I told you before.”
XIV.
Sewell chanced to open his door to go out just as Miss Vane put her hand on the bell-pull, the morning after she had dismissed Lemuel. The cheer of his Monday face died out at the unsmiling severity of hers; but he contrived to ask her in, and said he would call Mrs. Sewell, if she would sit down in the reception-room a moment.
“I don't know,” she said, with a certain look of inquiry, not unmixed with compassion. “It's about Lemuel.”
The minister fetched a deep sigh. “Yes, I know it. But she will have to know it sooner or later.” He went to the stairway and called her name, and then returned to Miss Vane in the reception-room.