ed
negotiation--with the one kind purpose of protecting Mrs. Ellmother
against the pitiless curiosity of Francine.

"Do you think you and that young lady are likely to get on well
together?" she asked.

"I have told you already, Miss Emily, I want to get away from my own
home and my own thoughts; I don't care where I go, so long as I do
that." Having answered in those words, Mrs. Ellmother opened the door,
and waited a while, thinking. "I wonder whether the dead know what is
going on in the world they have left?" she said, looking at Emily. "If
they do, there's one among them knows my thoughts, and feels for me.
Good-by, miss--and don't think worse of me than I deserve."

Emily went back to the parlor. The only resource left was to plead with
Francine for mercy to Mrs. Ellmother.

"Do you really mean to give it up?" she asked.

"To give up--what? 'Pumping,' as that obstinate old creature calls it?"

Emily persisted. "Don't worry the poor old soul! However strangely she
may have left my aunt and me her motives are kind and good--I am sure of
that. Will you let her keep her harmless little secret?"

"Oh, of course!"

"I don't believe you, Francine!"

"Don't you? I am like Cecilia--I am getting hungry. Shall we have some
lunch?"

"You hard-hearted creature!"

"Does that mean--no luncheon until I have owned the truth? Suppose _you_
own the truth? I won't tell Mrs. Ellmother that you have betrayed her."

"For the last time, Francine--I know no more of it than you do. If you
persist in taking your own view, you as good as tell me I lie; and you
will oblige me to leave the room."

Even Francine's obstinacy was compelled to give way, so far as
appearances went. Still possessed by the delusion that Emily was
deceiving her, she was now animated by a stronger motive than mere
curiosity. Her sense of her own importance imperatively urged her to
prove that she was not a person who could be deceived with impunity.

"I beg your pardon," she said with humility. "But I must positively have
it out with Mrs. Ellmother. She has been more than a match for me--my
turn next. I mean to get the better of her; and I shall succeed."

"I have already told you, Francine--you will fail."

"My dear, I am a dunce, and I don't deny it. But let me tell you one
thing. I haven't lived all my life in the West Indies, among black
servants, without learning something."

"What do you mean?"

"More, my clever friend, than you are likely