“Oh, she wouldn’t go,” said Mr.
Evans, with a slight sigh. “You had better
take it. Jefferson’s going to do Bob
Acres.”
“Is that so?” asked Mrs. Harmon placidly,
taking the ticket. “Well, I’m ever
so much obliged to you, Mr. Evans. Mr. Evans,
Mr. Barker— our new clerk,” she said,
introducing them.
Lemuel rose with rustic awkwardness, and shook hands
with Mr. Evans, who looked at him with a friendly
smile, but said nothing.
“Now Mr. Barker is here, I guess I can get the
time.” Mr. Evans said, well, he was glad
she could, and went out of the street door. “He’s
just one of the nicest gentlemen I’ve got,”
continued Mrs. Harmon, following him with her eye
as far as she conveniently could without turning her
head, “him and his wife both. Ever heard
of the Saturday Afternoon?”
“I don’t know as I have,” said Lemuel.
“Well, he’s one of the editors. It’s
a kind of a Sunday paper, I guess, for all it don’t
come out that day. I presume he could go every
night in the week to every theatre in town, if he wanted
to. I don’t know how many tickets he’s
give me. Some of the ladies seem to think he’s
always makin’ fun of them; but I can’t
ever feel that way. He used to board with a great
friend of mine, him and his wife. They’ve
been with me now ever since Mrs. Hewitt died; she was
the one they boarded with before. They say he
used to be dreadful easy-going, ‘n’ ’t
his wife was all ’t saved him. But I guess
he’s different now. Well, I must go out
and see after the lunch. You watch the office,
and say just what I told you before.”
Sewell chanced to open his door to go out just as
Miss Vane put her hand on the bell-pull, the morning
after she had dismissed Lemuel. The cheer of
his Monday face died out at the unsmiling severity
of hers; but he contrived to ask her in, and said
he would call Mrs. Sewell, if she would sit down in
the reception-room a moment.
“I don’t know,” she said, with a
certain look of inquiry, not unmixed with compassion.
“It’s about Lemuel.”
The minister fetched a deep sigh. “Yes,
I know it. But she will have to know it sooner
or later.” He went to the stairway and called
her name, and then returned to Miss Vane in the reception-room.
“Has Lemuel been here?” she asked.
“No.”
“You said you knew it was about him—”
“It was my bad conscience, I suppose, and your
face that told me.”
Miss Vane waited for Mrs. Sewell’s presence
before she unpacked her heart. Then she left
nothing in it. She ended by saying, “I have
examined and cross-examined Sibyl, but it’s like
cross-questioning a chameleon; she changed colour
with every new light she was put into.”
Here Miss Vane had got sorrowfully back to something
more of her wonted humour, and laughed.
“Poor Sibyl!” said Mrs. Sewell.
“Poor?” retorted Miss Vane. “Not
at all! I could get nothing out of either of
them; but I feel perfectly sure that Lemuel was not
to blame.”
