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<h3 id="id02205" style="margin-top: 3em">CHAPTER XIX.</h3> <h3 id="id02206" style="margin-top: 3em">NEWS.</h3> November had come. It was early in the month still; yet, as often happens, the season was thoroughly defined already. Later, perhaps, some sweet relics or reminders of October would come in, or days of the soberer charm which October's successor often brings; but just now, a grey sky and a brown earth and a wind with no tenderness in it banished all thought of such pleasant times. The day was dark and gloomy. So the fire which burned bright in the kitchen of Mrs. Armadale's house showed particularly bright, and its warm reflections were exceedingly welcome both to the eye and to the mind. It was a wood fire, in an open chimney, for Mrs. Armadale would sit by no other; and I call the place the kitchen, for really a large portion of the work of the kitchen was done there; however, there was a stove in an adjoining room, which accommodated most of the boilers and kettles in use, while the room itself was used for all the "mussy" work. Nevertheless, it was only upon occasion that fire was kindled in that outer room, economy in fuel forbidding that two fires should be all the while kept going. In the sitting-room kitchen, then, this November afternoon, the whole family were assembled. The place was as nice as a pin, and as neat as if no work were ever done there. All the work of the day, indeed, was over; and even Miss Charity had come to sit down with the rest, knitting in hand. They had all changed their dresses and put off their big aprons, and looked unexceptionably nice and proper; only, it is needless to say, with no attempt at a fashionable appearance. Their gowns were calico; collars and cuffs of plain linen; and the white aprons they all wore were not fine nor ornamented. Only the old lady, who did no housework any longer, was dressed in a stuff gown, and wore an apron of black silk. Charity, as I said, was knitting; so was her grandmother. Madge was making more linen collars. Lois sat by her grandmother's chair, for the minute doing nothing. "What do you expect to do for a bonnet, Lois?" Charity broke the silence. "Or I either?" put in Madge. "Or you yourself, Charity? We are all in the same box." "I wish our hats were!" said the elder sister. "I have not thought much about it," Lois answered. "I suppose, if necessary, I shall wear my straw." "Then you'll have nothing to wear in the summer! It's robbing Peter to pay Paul." "Well," said Lois, smiling,—"if Paul's turn comes first. I cannot look so long ahead as next summer." "It'll be here before you can turn round," said Charity, whose knitting needles flew without her having any occasion to watch them. "And then, straw is cold in winter." "I can tie a comforter over my ears." "That would look poverty-stricken." "I suppose," said Madge slowly, "that is what we are. It looks like it, just now." "'The Lord maketh poor and maketh rich,'" Mrs. Armadale said. "Yes, mother," said Charity; "but our cow died because she was tethered carelessly." "And our hay failed because there was no rain," Madge added. "And our apples gave out because they killed themselves with bearing last year." "You forget, child, it is the Lord 'that giveth rain, both the former and the latter, in his season.'" "But he didn't give it, mother; that's what I'm talking about; neither the former nor the latter; though what that means, I'm sure I don't know; we have it all the year round, most years." "Then be contented if a year comes when he does not send it." "Grandmother, it'll do for you to talk; but what are we girls going to do without bonnets?" "Do without," said Lois archly, with the gleam of her eye and the arch of her pretty brow which used now and then to bewitch poor Tom Caruthers. "We have hardly apples to make sauce of," Charity went on. "If it had been a good year, we could have got our bonnets with our apples, nicely. Now, I don't see where they are to come from." "Don't wish for what the Lord don't send, child," said Mrs. Armadale. "O mother! that's a good deal to ask," cried Charity. "It's very well for you, sitting in your arm-chair all the year round; but we have to put our heads out; and for one, I'd rather have something on them. Lois, haven't you got anything to do, that you sit there with your hands in your lap?" "I am going to the post-office," said Lois, rising; "the train's in. I heard the whistle." The village street lay very empty, this brown November day; and so, to Lois's fancy, lay the prospect of the winter. Even so; brown and lightless, with a chill nip in the air that dampened rather than encouraged energy. She was young and cheery-tempered; but perhaps there was a shimmer yet in her memory of the colours on the Isles of Shoals; at any rate the village street seemed dull to her and the day forbidding. She walked fast, to stir her spirits. The country around Shampuashuh is flat; never a hill or lofty object of any kind rose upon her horizon to suggest wider look-outs and higher standing-points than her present footing gave her. The best she could see was a glimpse of the distant Connecticut, a little light blue thread afar off; and I cannot tell why, what she thought of when she saw it was Tom Caruthers. I suppose Tom was associated in her mind with any wider horizon than Shampuashuh street afforded. Anyhow, Mr. Caruthers' handsome face came be fore her; and a little, a very little, breath of regret escaped her, because it was a face she would see no more. Yet why should she wish to see it? she asked herself. Mr. Caruthers could be nothing to her; he never could be anything to her; for he knew not and cared not to know either the joys or the obligations of religion, in which Lois's whole life was bound up. However, though he could be nothing to her, Lois had a woman's instinctive perception that she herself was, or had been, something to him; and that is an experience a simple girl does not easily forget. She had a kindness for him, and she was pretty sure he had more than a kindness for her, or would have had, if his sister had let him alone. Lois went back to her Appledore experiences, revolving and studying them, and understanding them a little better now, she thought, than at the time. At the time she had not understood them at all. It was just as well! she said to herself. She could never have married him. But why did his friends not want him to marry her? She was in the depths of this problem when she arrived at the post-office. The post-office was in the further end of a grocery store, or rather a store of varieties, such as country villages find convenient. From behind a little lattice the grocer's boy handed her a letter, with the remark that she was in luck to-day. Lois recognized Mrs. Wishart's hand, and half questioned the assertion. What was this? a new invitation? That cannot be, thought Lois; I was with her so long last winter, and now this summer again for weeks and weeks— And, anyhow, I could not go if she asked me. I could not even get a bonnet to go in; and I could not afford the money for the journey. She hoped it was not an invitation. It is hard to have the cup set to your lips, if you are not to drink it; any cup; and a visit to Mrs. Wishart was a very sweet cup to Lois. The letter filled her thoughts all the way home; and she took it to her own room at once, to have the pleasure, or the pain, mastered before she told of it to the rest of the family. But in a very few minutes Lois came flying down-stairs, with light in her eyes and a sudden colour in her cheeks. "Girls, I've got some news for you!" she burst in. Charity dropped her knitting in her lap. Madge, who was setting the table for tea, stood still with a plate in her hand. All eyes were on Lois. "Don't say news never comes! We've got it to-day." "What? Who is the letter from?" said Charity. "The letter is from Mrs. Wishart, but that does not tell you anything." "O, if it is from Mrs. Wishart, I suppose the news only concerns you," said Madge, setting down her plate. "Mistaken!" cried Lois. "It concerns us all. Madge, don't go off. It is such a big piece of news that I do not know how to begin to give it to you; it seems as if every side of it was too big to take hold of for a handle. Mother, listen, for it concerns you specially." "I hear, child." And Mrs. Armadale looked interested and curious. "It's delightful to have you all looking like that," said Lois, "and to know it's not for nothing. You'll look more 'like that' when I've told you—if ever I can begin." "My dear, you are quite excited," said the old lady. "Yes, grandmother, a little. It's so seldom that anything happens, here." "The days are very good, when nothing happens. I think," said the old lady softly. "And now something has really happened—for once. Prick up your ears, Charity! Ah, I see they are pricked up already," Lois went on merrily. "Now listen. This letter is from Mrs. Wishart." "She wants you again!" cried Madge. "Nothing of the sort. She asks—" "Why don't you read the letter?" "I will; but I want to tell you first. She says there is a certain friend of a friend of hers—a very nice person, a widow lady, who would like to live in the country if she could find a good place; and Mrs. Wishart wants to know, if we would like to have her in our house." "To board?" cried Madge. Lois nodded, and watched the faces around her. "We never did that before," said Madge. "No. The question is, whether we will do it now." "Take her to board!" repeated Charity. "It would be a great bother. What room would you give her?" "Rooms. She wants two. One for a sitting-room." "Two! We couldn't, unless we gave her our best parlour, and had none for ourselves. That wouldn't do." "Unless she would pay for it," Lois suggested. "How much would she pay? Does Mrs. Wishart say?" "Guess, girls! She would pay—twelve dollars a week." Charity almost jumped from her chair. Madge stood leaning with her hands upon the table and stared at her sister. Only the old grandmother went on now quietly with her knitting. The words were re-echoed by both sisters. "Twelve dollars a week! Fifty dollars a month!" cried Madge, and clapped her hands. "We can have bonnets all round; and the hay and the apples won't matter. Fifty dollars a month! Why, Lois!—" "It would be an awful bother," said Charity. "Mrs. Wishart says not. At least she says this lady—this Mrs. Barclay—is a delightful person, and we shall like her so much we shall not mind the trouble. Besides, I do not think it will be so much trouble. And we do not use our parlour much. I'll read you the letter now." So she did; and then followed an eager talk. "She is a city body, of course. Do you suppose she will be contented with our ways of going on?" Charity queried. "What ways do you mean?" "Well—will our table suit her?" "We can make it suit her," said Madge. "Just think—with fifty dollars a month—" "But we're not going to keep a cook," Charity went on. "I won't do that. I can do all the work of the house, but I can't do half of it. And if I do the cooking, I shall do it just as I have always done it. I can't go to fussing. It'll be country ways she'll be treated to; and the question is, how she'll like 'em?" "She can try," said Lois. "And then, maybe she'll be somebody that'll take airs." "Perhaps," said Lois, laughing; "but not likely. What if she did, Charity? That would be her affair." "It would be my affair to bear it," said Charity grimly. "Daughters," said Mrs. Armadale gently, "suppose we have some tea." This suggestion brought all to their bearings. Madge set the table briskly, Charity made the tea, Lois cut bread and made toast; and presently talking and eating went on in the harmonious combination which is so agreeable. "If she comes," said Lois, "there must be curtains to the parlour windows. I can make some of chintz, that will look pretty and not cost much. And there must be a cover for the table." "Why must there? The table is nice mahogany," said Charity. "It looks cold and bare so. All tables in use have covers, at Mrs. Wishart's." "I don't see any sense in that. What's the good of it?" "Looks pretty and comfortable." "That's nothing but a notion. I don't believe in notions. You'll tell me next our steel forks won't do." "Well, I do tell you that. Certainly they will not do, to a person always accustomed to silver." "That's nothing but uppishness, Lois. I can't stand that sort of thing. Steel's just as good as silver, only it don't cost so much; that's all." "It don't taste as well." "You don't need to eat your fork." "No, but you have to touch your lips to it." "How does that hurt you, I want to know?" "It hurts my taste," said Lois; "and so it is uncomfortable. If Mrs. Barclay comes, I should certainly get some plated forks. Half a dozen would not cost much." "Mother," said Charity, "speak to Lois! She's getting right worldly, I think. Set her right, mother!" "It is something I don't understand," said the old lady gravely. "Steel forks were good enough for anybody in the land, when I was young. I don't see, for my part, why they ain't just as good now." Lois wisely left this question unanswered. "But you think we ought to let this lady come, mother, don't you?" "My dear," said Mrs. Armadale, "I think it's a providence!" "And it won't worry you, grandmother, will it?" "I hope not. If she's agreeable, she may do us good; and if she's disagreeable, we may do her good." "That's grandma all over!" exclaimed Charity; "but if she's disagreeable, I'll tell you what, girls, I'd rather scrub floors. 'Tain't my vocation to do ugly folks good." "Charity," said Mrs. Armadale, "it is your vocation. It is what everybody is called to do." "It's what you've been trying to do to me all my life, ain't it?" said Charity, laughing. "But you've got to keep on, mother; it ain't done yet. But I declare! there ought to be somebody in a house who can be disagreeable by spells, or the rest of the world'd grow rampant." <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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