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Minta Hurd, always delicate and consumptive, was now generally too ill from shock and misery to be anywhere but in her bed, and Willie was growing steadily weaker, though the child's spirit was such that he would insist on dressing, on hearing and knowing everything about his father, and on moving about the house as usual.
And it was even as her mother had thought. Georgia had married, "beneath the family," she told Minta, the Georgia who was too proud to ever write again. She was living in Brooklyn, the wife of Randolph, an assistant engineer on an ocean steamship. And Etta came to visit Georgia, and a great load, a load of which she had, through the years, been unconscious, slipped away as Minta let go her enmity.
"Well, you mustn't go out in them nursin' things again," said Minta, quickly; "I've put you in some lace in your black dress, an' it looks beautiful." "Oh, thank you, Minta; but that black dress always seems to me too smart to walk about these streets in." "It's just nice," said Minta, with decision. "It's just what everybody that knows you what your mamma would like to see you in.
But I do say you're a fool if you go on with it, now you've got good work for the winter; you must please remember your wife and children." And there he had sat like a log, staring at her both he and Minta not knowing where to look, or how to speak. Then at last his wife had broken out, crying: "Oh, miss! we should ha starved " And Miss Boyce had stopped her in a moment, catching her by the hand.
Once or twice she thought passionately of Minta Hurd, washing and mending all day, in her damp cottage; or of the Pattons in "the parish house," thankful after sixty years of toil for a hovel where the rain came through the thatch, and where the smoke choked you, unless, with the thermometer below freezing-point, you opened the door to the blast.
Just now, however, as she sat gently swaying backwards and forwards in the rocking-chair, enjoying her tea, her mood was one of nothing but content. "Oh, Minta, give me another cup. I want to have a sleep so badly, and then I am going to see Miss Hallin, and stay to supper with them."
Minta must not call her Miss Boyce, but by her name; which, however, Minta, reddening, had declared she could never do. Her relation to Marcella was not to be that of servant in any sense, but of friend and sister; and on her and her children Marcella had spent from the beginning a number of new womanish wiles which, strangely enough, this hard, strenuous life had been developing in her.
Once when the first streaks of the March dawn were showing through the curtains Minta Hurd sprang up with a loud cry: "Oh, my God! Jim, Jim! Oh, no! take that off. Oh, please, sir, please! Oh, for God's sake, sir!" Agony struggled with sleep. Marcella, shuddering, held and soothed her, and for a while sleep, or rather the drug in her veins, triumphed again.
Hurd seems to be bringing them in." As he spoke, Anthony suddenly sprang to his feet, and the outer door opened. "Louis!" cried Anthony, "it is he!" "Are yer at home, miss?" said Minta Hurd, putting in her head; "I can hardly see, it's so dark. Here's a gentleman wants to see you." As she spoke, Wharton passed her, and stood arrested by the sight of the three figures. At the same moment Mrs.
And for these and such as these he had bartered the esteem of the community at large and his filial duty and obedience; had spurned the claims of good citizenship and placed himself in jeopardy of the law; had forfeited the hand of the woman he loved. "Minta Elladine Biggs ain't keerin' nohow fer sech ez Watt," said the semblance of the setter, with a knowing nod of his red head.
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