Outside there were sweet lilies of the valley and violets and pansies, and the roses wafted long breaths of fragrance to her through the trellis work of the porch, while the morning glories hung their heads and blushed under the ardent kisses of the sun.

In the kitchen Unavella Cynthesia Crockett, her faithful and devoted “assistant” (Miss Crockett objected to the term servant upon democratic principles), moved cheerily, with a giant masterfulness which bespoke a successful initiation into the mysteries of the culinary art.  All at once she shut the oven door, where three toothsome loaves were browning, and listened intently.  Then she went out to interview Thomas, the butcher’s boy, who came three times a week with supplies.

“The sweet-breads hez cum, Miss Di-an,” she said, appearing in the porch before her mistress.

“Well, Unavella,” said Miss Diana, with a pleasant smile, “you expected them, did you not?  We ordered them, you know.  They are very nutritious, I think.”

“Hum!  There’s some news cum along with ’em that ain’t likely to prove ez nourishin’.  Tummas sez the Provident Savings Company hez busted an’ the president’s vamoosed.”

“Dear me!  I wish Thomas would not use such very forceful language,” said Miss Diana.  “Do you think he finds it necessary?  Being a butcher, you know?  I hardly understand the words.  Do you think you would find them defined in Webster?”

Unavella’s eyes twinkled through her gloom.  “I guess Tummas ain’t got much use for dictionners,” she said.  “He uses words that cums nearest to his feelin’s.  He’s lost two hundred dollars, Tummas hez.”

“Dear me!  How very grieved I am.  But a dictionary, Unavella, is the basis of all education.  Thomas ought to appreciate that.  ‘Busted,’” she repeated the word slowly, with an instinctive shrinking from its sound, “that is a vulgar corruption of the verb to burst; but ‘vamoosed,’ I do not think I ever heard the term before.”

“Tummas says it means to show the under side of your shoe leather.”

“The under side of your shoe leather, Unavella?” Miss Diana lifted her pretty shoe and held it up for inspection.  “Do you see anything wrong with that?”

The faithful soul threw her apron over her head with a sob.  “Oh, Miss Di-an!” she wailed, “it means the company’s all a set of cheats, an’ the biggest rogue of the lot hez lit out—­run away—­an’ taken the money the Gin’rel left you along with him.”

CHAPTER XX.

Miss Diana received the news in absolute silence.  The brave daughter of a brave father, she would make no moan, but the sweetness seemed to have suddenly gone from the flowers and the light out of the sky.

Unavella looked at her in amazement.  She was used to the stormy grief which finds vent in tears and groans.  “It beats me how different folks takes things!” she ejaculated mentally.  “Well, she’ll need suthin’ to keep her strength up all the more now she ain’t got nuthin’ to support her;” and, gathering peas and pods into her apron with a mighty sweep of her arm, she marched into her kitchen in a fever of sympathetic indignation and evolved a dinner which was a masterpiece of culinary skill.