Page:Wilson - The Boss of Little Arcady (1905).djvu/189

 them. The unexpected drain had reduced his savings to a pittance, but were not the pullets which he could raise absolutely without number?

It was true that Miss Caroline would have to come alone now, leaving Little Miss still to teach in the school at Baltimore until a day of renewed surplus. This much Clem confided to me in sorrow. I sympathized with him, truly, but I felt it was a fortunate circumstance. I thought that one of the ladies at a time would be as much as Little Arcady could assimilate.

Slowly the house grew into a home awaiting its mistress, a home whose furnished rooms overflowed into others not furnished but merely crowded.

I foresaw, not without a certain wicked cheerfulness, that, even after the coming of Miss Caroline, Clem would be forced to pander to my breakfast appetites for the slight betterment it made in his fortunes, even must this be done surreptitiously. And at least one dinner was secured to me beyond the coming of this mistress; for Clem had conveyed to me, with appropriate ceremony, an invitation, which I promptly accepted, to dine with Mrs. Caroline Lansdale at six-thirty on the evening of her arrival, she having gleaned from his letters, it appeared, that I had been a rather friendly adviser of her servant.

In the days that followed I saw that Clem was regarding me with an embarrassed, troubled look. Something of weight lay upon his mind. Nor was it easy to make him speak, but I achieved this at last.