Part 90 (1/2)
”Yes he does,” said Madge. ”I found an end of cigar just down by the front steps, when I was sweeping.”
”I don't think he's a lazy man, either,” said Lois. ”That slow, easy way does not mean laziness.”
”What does it mean?” inquired Mrs. Marx sharply.
”It is nothing to us what it means,” said Mrs. Armadale, speaking for the first time. ”We have no concern with this man. He came to see Mrs.
Barclay, his friend, and I suppose he'll never come again.”
”Why shouldn't he come again, mother?” said Charity. ”If she's his friend, he might want to see her more than once, seems to me. And what's more, he _is_ coming again. I heard him askin' her if he might; and then Mrs. Barclay asked me if it would be convenient, and I said it would, of course. He said he would be comin' back from Boston in a few weeks, and he would like to stop again as he went by. And do you know _I_ think she coloured. It was only a little, but she ain't a woman to blush much; and _I_ believe she knows why he wants to come, as well as he does.”
”Nonsense, Charity!” said Madge incredulously.
”Then half the world are busy with nonsense, that's all I have to say; and I'm glad for my part I've somethin' better to do.”
”Do you say he's comin' again?” inquired Mrs. Armadale.
”He says so, mother.”
”What for?”
”Why, to visit his friend Mrs. Barclay, of course.”
”She is our friend,” said the old lady; ”and her friends must be entertained; but he is not _our_ friend, children. We ain't of his kind, and he ain't of our'n.”
”What's the matter? Ain't he good?” asked Mrs. Marx.
”He's _very_ good!” said Madge.
”Not in grandmother's way,” said Lois softly.
”Mother,” said Mrs. Marx, ”you can't have everybody cut out on your pattern.”
Mrs. Armadale made no answer.
”And there ain't enough o' your pattern to keep one from bein'
lonesome, if we're to have nothin' to do with the rest.”
”Better so,” said the old lady. ”I don't want no company for my chil'en that won't help 'em on the road to heaven. They'll have company enough when they get there.”
”And how are you goin' to be the salt o' the earth, then, if you won't touch nothin'?”
”How, if the salt loses its saltness, daughter?”
”Well, mother, it always puzzles me, that there's so much to be said on both sides of things! I'll go home and think about it. Then he ain't one o' your Appledore friends, Lois?”
”Not one of my friends at all, aunt Anne.”
So the talk ended. There was a little private extension of it that evening, when Lois and Madge went up to bed.