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Updated: June 29, 2025
All eyes rested upon the gaunt figure of the chairman, as he rose to his feet to announce the total of the subscription list. He cleared his throat, and looked down at Hepsey Burke; and Jonathan, as he squinted anxiously at Hepsey by his side, noticed that she sat with her eyes tight-closed, oblivious of the chairman's glance.
"Well, chillen, in my young days dat waz pretty much of a sum sho's yo' born it waz." "Things are different now; and besides, Maum' Hepsey, you don't know how a dressed-up lady ought to look." "Highty-tighty!" said maum', while her eyes sparkled alarmingly. "As if I ain't seen mo' finery in a month dan you has in every blessed year of your life!
"Thee likes housework I think," said Mrs. Sterling, as she watched her hang up a towel to dry, and rinse her dish-cloth when the cleaning up was done. "Oh, yes! if I need not do it with a shiftless Irish girl to drive me distracted by pretending to help. I have lived out, and did not find it hard while I had my good Hepsey. I was second girl, and can set a table in style.
"If Joe and me was to set anywheres but in front, he might see the light." "Well, what of it?" "Miss Hathaway, she don't want it talked of, and men folks never can keep secrets," Hepsey suggested. "You wouldn't have to tell him, would you?" "Yes'm. Men folks has got terrible curious minds. They're all right if they don't know there's nothin', but if they does, why they's keen."
Hepsey, passing through the hall, noted the crisp white ribbon at her throat and the bow in her hair. "Are you expectin' company, Miss Thorne?" she asked, innocently. "I am expecting no one," answered Ruth, frigidly, "I am going out." Feeling obliged to make her word good, she took the path which led to Miss Ainslie's.
Hepsey came in every day after breakfast, and again in the late afternoon. Ruth tried to get her to go out for a drive, but she refused. "No, deary," she said, smiling, "I've never been away, and I'm too old to begin now." Neighbours, hearing of her illness, came to offer sympathy and help, but she would see none of them not even Aunt Jane.
"Hepsey Burke had a right to call me a skinflint, because she knew what none of you knew; but because it was private knowledge she wouldn't make use of it against me not unless she couldn't have done what was right any other way. And now I'm going to tell you what she knew: "The rectory was my wife's property, and she intended it as a gift to the parish, for the rectory of the church.
"And I agree with you," he added presently, in a quiet voice: "I was a skinflint for fair!" Almost Hepsey forgot herself so far as to clap thunderously: she caught her hands together just in time recollecting that her demonstration would be taken too literally. "But I would not have you misunderstand me: though it was for me to call myself a skinflint for that act, it was not for you to do so.
The key that unlocks it is hung on a nail driven into the back of the old bureau in the attic. I believe Hepsey is honest and reliable, but I don't believe in tempting folks. "When I get anywhere where I can, I will write and send you my address, and then you can tell me how things are going at home.
For a moment Hepsey struggled to reconcile her code of ethics with her idea of good manners, and then replied: "Why say, 'Mrs. Maxwell, it was awfully good of you to ask me, and I don't believe she'll notice anything wrong about that." "Hm!" Nickey retorted scornfully. "Seems pretty much like the same thing to me." "Oh no! Not in the least. Now what will you wear when we go to the rectory?"
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