“Phoebe,” said Miss Panney, “you are a lazy woman and an undutiful wife.  It is not four miles to Cobhurst, and you walk two or three times that distance every day, gadding about town.  You ought to go out there and attend to Mike’s clothes, and see that he is comfortable, instead of giving up the little time you do work to that minister, and everybody knows that the reason you have taken him to board is that you want to set yourself up above the rest of the congregation.”

“Good laws, Miss Panney!” exclaimed Phoebe, “I don’t see as how anybody can think that!”

“Well, I do,” replied the old lady, “and plenty of other people besides.  But as you won’t go out to Cobhurst to attend to your own duty, I want you to go there to attend to something for me.  I was going myself, but I start for the seashore to-morrow, and have not time.  I want to know how that poor Mr. Ralph is getting along.  Molly Tooney has left, and his sister is away, and of course those two Drane women are temporary boarders and take no care of him or his clothes.  To be sure, there is a woman there, but she is that English-French creature who gives all her time to fancy dishes, and I suppose never made a bed or washed a shirt in her life.”

“That’s so, Miss Panney,” said Phoebe, eagerly, “an’ I reckon it’s a lot of slops he has to eat now.  ’Tain’t like the good wholesome meals I gave him when I cooked thar.  An’ as fur washin’, if there’s any of that done, I reckon Mike does it.”

“I should not wonder,” said the old lady.  “And, Phoebe, I want you to go out there this afternoon, and look over Mr. Haverley’s linen, and see what ought to be washed or mended, and take general notice of how things are going on.  I shall see his sister, and I want to report the state of affairs at her home.  For all I know, those Dranes and their cook may pack up and clear out to-morrow if the notion takes them.  Then you must meet me at the station at nine o’clock to-morrow morning, and tell me what you find out.  If things are going all wrong, Mr. Haverley will never write to his sister to disturb her mind.  Start for Cobhurst as soon as you can, and I will pay your carriage hire—­no, I will not do that, for I want you to make a good long stay, and it will cost too much to keep a hack waiting.  You can walk just as well as not, and it will do you good.  And while you are there, Phoebe, you might take notice of Miss Drane.  If she has finished the work she was doing for the doctor, and is just sitting about idly or strolling around the place, it is likely they will soon leave, for if the young woman does not work they cannot afford to stay there.  And that is a thing Miss Miriam ought to know all about.”

“Seems to me, Miss Panney,” said the colored woman, “that ’twould be a mighty good thing for Mr. Hav’ley to get married.  An’ thar’s that Miss Drane right thar already.”

“What stupid nonsense!” exclaimed Miss Panney.  “I thought you had more sense than to imagine such a thing as that.  She is not in any way suitable for him.  She is a poor little thing who has to earn her own living, and her mother’s too.  She is not in the least fit to be the mistress of that place.”