should say to her now?"

"Say to who?"

"The gul. She's down in the pahlor, waitin'."

"Well, of all the men!" cried Mrs. Lander. But she seemed to find
herself, upon reflection, less able to cope with Lander personally than
with the situation generally. "Will you send her up, Albe't?" she asked,
very patiently, as if he might be driven to further excesses, if not
delicately handled. As soon as he had gone out of the room she wished
that she had told him to give her time to dress and have her room put in
order, before he sent the child up; but she could only make the best of
herself in bed with a cap and a breakfast jacket, arranged with the help
of a handglass. She had to get out of bed to put her other clothes away
in the closet and she seized the chance to push the breakfast tray out
of the door, and smooth up the bed, while she composed her features and
her ideas to receive her visitor. Both, from long habit rather than from
any cause or reason, were of a querulous cast, and her ordinary tone
was a snuffle expressive of deep-seated affliction. She was at once
plaintive and voluable, and in moments of excitement her need of freeing
her mind was so great that she took herself into her own confidence, and
found a more sympathetic listener than when she talked to her husband.
As she now whisked about her room in her bed-gown with an activity not
predicable of her age and shape, and finally plunged under the covering
and drew it up to her chin with one hand while she pressed it out
decorously over her person with the other, she kept up a rapid flow of
lamentation and conjecture. "I do suppose he'll be right back with her
before I'm half ready; and what the man was thinkin' of to do such a
thing anyway, I don't know. I don't know as she'll notice much, comin'
out of such a lookin' place as that, and I don't know as I need to care
if she did. But if the'e's care anywhe's around, I presume I'm the one
to have it. I presume I did take a fancy to her, and I guess I shall be
glad to see how I like her now; and if he's only told her I want some
sewin' done, I can scrape up something to let her carry home with her.
It's well I keep my things where I can put my hand on 'em at a time like
this, and I don't believe I shall sca'e the child, as it is. I do hope
Albe't won't hang round half the day before he brings her; I like to
have a thing ova."

Lander wandered about looking for the girl through the parlors and the
piazzas, a