u're all settled; it must be nice to
have folks!"

It was a pathetic little phrase, and I fancied I detected a tear in
her usually cheerful and decided voice. Acting on the suspicion, I said
hurriedly, "You have already had a share of Miss Monroe's 'folks' and
mine offered you, and now Miss Peabody will be sure to add hers to the
number. Your only difficulty will be to attend to them all impartially,
and keep them from quarrelling as to which shall have you next."

She brightened visibly. "Yes," she assented, without any superfluous
modesty,--squeezing as she spoke a pair of bronze slippers into the
crown of Francesca's favourite hat--"yes, that part'll be hard on all
of us; but I want you to know that I belong to you this winter, any way;
Miss Peabody can get along without me better'n you can."

Her glance was freighted with a kind of evasive, half-embarrassed
affection; shy, unobtrusive, respectful it was, but altogether friendly
and helpful.

That the relations between us have ever quite been those of mistress
and maid, I cannot affirm. We have tried to persuade ourselves that they
were at least an imitation of the proper thing, just to maintain our
self-respect while travelling in a country of monarchical institutions,
but we have always tacitly understood the real situation and accepted
its piquant incongruities.

So when I met Benella Dusenberry's wistful, sympathetic eye, my
republican head, reckless of British conventions, found the maternal
hollow in her spinster shoulder as I said, "Dear old Derelict! it was a
good day for us when you drifted into our harbour!"

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Penelope's Irish Experiences, by
Kate Douglas Wiggin

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