Middlemount coach came in full sight. Then they sprang into the air, and
beating their hands together, screamed, "Clem! Clem! Oh it's Clem!" and
jumped up and down, and a shabby looking work worn woman came round the
corner of the house and stared up at Clementina waving her banner wildly
to the children, and shouting unintelligible words to them. The young
people on the coach joined in response to the children, some simply,
some ironically, and one of the men caught up a great wreath of flowers
which lay at Clementina's feet, and flung it down to them; the shabby
woman quickly vanished round the corner of the house again. Mrs. Milray
leaned over to ask the landlord, "Who in the world are Clementina's
friends?"
"Why don't you know?" he retorted in abated voice. "Them's her brothas
and sistas."
"And that woman?"
"The lady at the conna? That's her motha."
When the event was over, and all the things had been said and said
again, and there was nothing more to keep the spring and summer months
from going up to their rooms to lie down, and the fall and winter months
from trying to get something to eat, Mrs. Milray found herself alone
with Clementina.
The child seemed anxious about something, and Mrs. Milray, who wanted
to go and lie down, too, asked a little impatiently, "What is it,
Clementina?"
"Oh, nothing. Only I was afraid maybe you didn't like my waving to
the children, when you saw how queea they looked." Clementina's lips
quivered.
"Did any of the rest say anything?"
"I know what they thought. But I don't care! I should do it right over
again!"
Mrs. Milray's happiness in the day's triumph was so great that she could
indulge a generous emotion. She caught the girl in her arms. "I want to
kiss you; I want to hug you, Clementina!"
The notion of a dance for the following night to celebrate the
success of the house in the coaching parade came to Mrs. Milray aver a
welsh-rarebit which she gave at the close of the evening. The party was
in the charge of Gregory, who silently served them at their orgy with an
austerity that might have conspired with the viand itself against their
dreams, if they had not been so used to the gloom of his ministrations.
He would not allow the waitresses to be disturbed in their evening
leisure, or kept from their sleep by such belated pleasures; and when
he had provided the materials for the rarebit, he stood aloof, and left
their combination to Mrs. Milray and her chafin
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