Page:A Little Country Girl - Coolidge (1887).djvu/226

 Candace was sitting in one of the very chairs, as it proved; the other Mrs. Joy presently discovered in a little back-room which opened from the parlor, and which she lost no time in rummaging. She had just unlocked another closet door, and was standing before it with a pitcher in her hand, when the mistress of the house appeared,—a tall, thin, rather severe-looking woman, whose cheeks still wore the fresh color which cheeks retain till old age in the Narragansett country.

Candace, who had remained in her chair in a state of speechless and helpless dismay, watching Mrs. Joy's proceedings through the open door, saw her coming, but had no time to warn Mrs. Joy.

"You wanted to see me on business?" said Miss Colishaw, fixing a pair of wrathful eyes on Mrs. Joy, the pitcher, and the open door of the closet.

"Oh, is it Miss Collisham?" replied that lady, neither noticing nor caring for the very evident indignation of look and tone. "Your little girl was so kind as to say that she