She looked up to answer me. The gingham bib of her apron fell down. And there, pinned to her tight little waist, I beheld—a button-picture of Andy! Never tell me that there does not abide in the air a race of little creatures whose sole duty it is to unveil all such secrets to make glad the gray world. Never tell me that it is such a very gray world either, if you wish my real opinion.
She looked down and espied the exposed mystery. She cast a frightened glance at me and I suppose that she saw me, who am a very foolish old woman, smiling with all my sympathetic might. At all events she gasped and sat down among the kindling, and said:—
“Oh, ma’am, we’re agoin’ to be marrit to-morrow. An’ Mis’ Bethune—I’m so scairt to tell ’er.”
I sat down too and caught my breath. This blessed generation. I had been wondering if these two were in love and on what they could live when at last they should make up their minds and lo, they were to be married to-morrow.
“Why, Katinka!” said I; “where?”
The little maid-of-all-work sobbed in her apron.
“I do’ know, ma’am,” she said. “Andy, he’s boardin’ so, an’ I’m a orphing. I t’ought,” mentioned Katinka, still sobbing, “maybe Mis’ Bethune’d let us stand up by the dinin’-room windy. The hangin’ lamp there looks some like a weddin’ bell, Andy t’ought.”
The hanging lamp had an orange shade and was done in dragons.
“When I see you an’ him las’ night,” Katinka went on, motioning with her stubby thumb toward the absent Pelleas, “I t’ought maybe you’d sign fer seein’ it done. I tol’ Andy so. Mis’ Bethune, I guess she’ll be rarin’. I wanted it to be in the kitchen, but Andy, he’s so proud. His pa was in dry goods,” said Katinka, wiping her eyes at the mere thought.
Here was a most delicious business thrown, as it were, fairly in my arms. I hailed it with delight, and sat holding my elbows and planning with all my might.