LITMIR.BIZ

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sure you didn’t leave the soap in the water?”

      “Quite sure, Ma,” with another anguished glance at the clock.

      “Are your shoelaces tied?”

      “Yes, Ma.”

      “You don’t smell respectable … drenched with scent.”

      “Oh, no, Ma dear … just a little … the tiniest bit …”

      “I said drenched and I mean drenched. There isn’t, a rip under your arm, is there?”

      “Oh, no, Ma.”

      “Let me see …” inexorably.

      Pauline quaked. Suppose the skirt of the gray dress showed when she lifted her arms!

      “Well, go, then.” With a long sigh. “If I ain’t here when you come back, remember that I want to be laid out in my lace shawl and my black satin slippers. And see that my hair is crimped.”

      “Do you feel any worse, Ma?” The poplin dress had made Pauline’s conscience very sensitive. “If you do … I’ll not go …”

      “And waste the money for them shoes! ‘Course you’re going. And mind you don’t slide down the banister.”

      But at this the worm turned.

      “Ma! Do you think I would?”

      “You did at Nancy Parker’s wedding.”

      ‘Thirty-five years ago! Do you think I would do it now?”

      “It’s time you were off. What are you jabbering here for? Do you want to miss your train?”

      Pauline hurried away and Anne sighed with relief. She had been afraid that old Mrs. Gibson had, at the last moment, been taken with a fiendish impulse to detain Pauline until the train was gone.

      “Now for a little peace,” said Mrs. Gibson. “This house is in an awful condition of untidiness, Miss Shirley. I hope you realize it ain’t always so. Pauline hasn’t known which end of her was up these last few days. Will you please set that vase an inch to the left? No, move it back again. That lamp shade is crooked. Well, that’s a little straighter. But that blind is an inch lower than the other. I wish you’d fix it.”

      Anne unluckily gave the blind too energetic a twist; it escaped her fingers and went whizzing to the top.

      “Ah, now you see,” said Mrs. Gibson.

      Anne didn’t see but she adjusted the blind meticulously.

      “And now wouldn’t you like me to make you a nice cup of tea, Mrs. Gibson?”

      “I do need something… . I’m clean wore out with all this worry and fuss. My stomach seems to be dropping out of me,” said Mrs. Gibson pathetically. “Kin you make a decent cup of tea? I’d as soon drink mud as the tea some folks make.”

      “Marilla Cuthbert taught me how to make tea. You’ll see. But first I’m going to wheel you out to the porch so that you can enjoy the sunshine.”

      “I ain’t been out on the porch for years,” objected Mrs. Gibson.

      “Oh, it’s so lovely today, it can’t hurt you. I want you to see the crab tree in bloom. You can’t see it unless you go out. And the wind is south today, so you’ll get the clover scent from Norman Johnson’s field. I’ll bring you your tea and we’ll drink it together and then I’ll get my embroidery and we’ll sit there and criticize everybody who passes.”

      “I don’t hold with criticizing people,” said Mrs. Gibson virtuously. “It ain’t Christian. Would you mind telling me if that is all your own hair?”

      “Every bit,” laughed Anne.

      “Pity it’s red. Though red hair seems to be gitting popular now. I sort of like your laugh. That nervous giggle of poor Pauline’s always gits on my nerves. Well, if I’ve got to git out, I s’pose I’ve got to. I’ll likely ketch my death of cold, but the responsibility is yours, Miss Shirley. Remember I’m eighty … every day of it, though I hear old Davy Ackham has been telling all around Summerside I’m only seventy-nine. His mother was a Watt. The Watts were always jealous.”

      Anne moved the wheel-chair deftly out, and proved that she had a knack of arranging pillows. Soon after she brought out the tea and Mrs. Gibson deigned approval.

      “Yes, this is drinkable, Miss Shirley. Ah me, for one year I had to live entirely on liquids. They never thought I’d pull through. I often think it might have been better if I hadn’t. Is that the crab tree you was raving about?”

      “Yes … isn’t it lovely … so white against that deep blue sky?”

      “It ain’t poetical,” was Mrs. Gibson’s sole comment. But she became rather mellow after two cups of tea and the forenoon wore away until it was time to think of dinner.

      “I’ll go and get it ready and then I’ll bring it out here on a little table.”

      “No, you won’t, miss. No crazy monkey-shines like that for me! People would think it awful queer, us eating out here in public. I ain’t denying it’s kind of nice out here … though the smell of clover always makes me kind of squalmish … and the forenoon’s passed awful quick to what it mostly does, but I ain’t eating my dinner out-of-doors for any one. I ain’t a gypsy. Mind you wash your hands clean before you cook the dinner. My, Mrs. Storey must be expecting more company. She’s got all the spare-room bedclothes airing on the line. It ain’t real hospitality … just a desire for sensation. Her mother was a Carey.”

      The dinner Anne produced pleased even Mrs. Gibson.

      “I didn’t think any one who wrote for the papers could cook. But of course Marilla Cuthbert brought you up. Her mother was a Johnson. I s’pose Pauline will eat herself sick at that wedding. She don’t know when she’s had enough … just like her father. I’ve seen him gorge on strawberries when he knew he’d be doubled up with pain an hour afterwards. Did I ever show you his picture, Miss Shirley? Well, go to the spare-room and bring it down. You’ll find it under the bed. Mind you don’t go prying into the drawers while you’re up there. But take a peep and see if there’s any dust curls under the bureau. I don’t trust Pauline… . Ah, yes, that’s him. His mother was a Walker. There’s no men like that nowadays. This is a degenerate age, Miss Shirley.”

      “Homer said the same thing eight hundred years, B.C.,” smiled Anne.

      “Some of them Old Testament writers was always croaking,” said Mrs. Gibson. “I daresay you’re shocked to hear me say so, Miss Shirley, but my husband was very broad in his views. I hear you’re engaged … to a medical student. Medical students mostly drink, I believe … have to, to stand the dissecting-room. Never marry a man who drinks, Miss Shirley. Nor one who ain’t a good provider. Thistledown and moonshine ain’t much to live on, I kin tell you. Mind you clean the sink and rinse the dish-towels. I can’t abide greasy dish-towels. I s’pose you’ll have to feed the dog. He’s too fat now, but Pauline just stuffs him. Sometimes I think I’ll have to get rid of him.”

      “Oh, I wouldn’t do that, Mrs. Gibson. There are always burglaries, you know … and your house is lonely, off here by itself. You really do need protection.”

      “Oh, well, have it your own way. I’d ruther do anything than argue with people, ‘specially when I’ve such a queer throbbing in the back of my neck. I s’pose it means I’m going to have a stroke.”

      “You need your nap. When you’ve had it you’ll feel better. I’ll tuck you up and lower your chair. Would you like to go out on the porch for your nap?”

      “Sleeping in public! That’d be worse than eating. You do have the queerest ideas. You just fix me up right here in the sitting-room and draw the blinds down and shut the door

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