Page:Charlotte Teller - The Cage (1907).djvu/20

THE CAGE well as a maid and a seamstress. But one day, three years before, she had been much moved by Dr. Hartwell's talk to the Beneficent Society of the church, and, with the directness which was in everything she did, she had dismissed her three servants, packed her trunk, and come over to help him. And not only had she followed his advice and started a kindergarten, but she had insisted upon helping his daughter Frederica do the work of the small home. The two, Frederica, who was twenty, and Anne, who was thirty-five, were now like sisters. Anne was full of Dr. Hartwell's belief in the dignity of work, and insisted upon doing the heaviest tasks of the house. Even on a hot August day she felt that she got a certain uplift in ironing on the back porch.

Maggie had brought Anne home to herself when she said: "Dr. Hartwell and Miss Freda couldn't get along without you."

For three years now she had thought of herself as a woman who was sacrificing much comfort to do good. The thought had given her a certain primness and conventional air of philanthropy. But to-day a little Irish girl had pricked both primness and philanthropy; and as she slapped away at the fringed table napkins she admitted to herself that she was in love.

There was some exultation in the gesture when she bore the basket of ironing into the kitchen. There was a flush on her cheeks when she came out again to put up the ironing board, and she knew a delight and a satisfaction that had never dawned before.

Dr. Hartwell's step in the kitchen made her smile; she pushed the old easy-chair to a spot where there might be a little of the lake breeze coming from the east. 10