“Tell me about her,” said Clover, making room on the step for the woman to sit down.

“Well, she come out last year with her man, who had lung trouble, and he wasn’t no better at first, and then he seemed to pick up for a while; and they took this house and fixed themselves to stay for a year, at least.  They made it real nice, too, and slicked up considerable.  Mis Starkey said, said she, ’I don’t want to spend no more money on it than I can help, but Mr. Starkey must be made comfortable,’ says she, them was her very words.  He used to set out on this stoop all day long in the summer, and she alongside him, except when she had to be indoors doing the work.  She didn’t keep no regular help.  I did the washing for her, and come in now and then for a day to clean; so she managed very well.

“Then,—­Wednesday before last, it was,—­he had a bleeding, and sank away like all in a minute, and was gone before the doctor could be had.  Mis Starkey was all stunned like with the shock of it; and before she had got her mind cleared up so’s to order about anything, come a telegraph to say her son was down with diphtheria, and his wife with a young baby, and both was very low.  And between one and the other she was pretty near out of her wits.  We packed her up as quick as we could, and he was sent off by express; and she says to me, ’Mis Kenny, you see how ’t is.  I’ve got this house on my hands till May.  There’s no time to see to anything, and I’ve got no heart to care; but if any one’ll take it for the winter, well and good; and I’ll leave the sheets and table-cloths and everything in it, because it may make a difference, and I don’t mind about them nohow.  And if no one does take it, I’ll just have to bear the loss,’ says she.  Poor soul! she was in a world of trouble, surely.”

“Do you know what rent she asks for the house?” said Clover, in whose mind a vague plan was beginning to take shape.

“Twenty-five a month was what she paid; and she said she’d throw the furniture in for the rest of the time, just to get rid of the rent.”

Clover reflected.  Twenty-five dollars a week was what they were paying at Mrs. Marsh’s.  Could they take this house and live on the same sum, after deducting the rent, and perhaps get this good-natured-looking woman to come in for a certain number of hours and help do the work?  She almost fancied that they could if they kept no regular servant.

“I think I would like to see the house,” she said at last, after a silent calculation and a scrutinizing look at Mrs. Kenny, who was a faded, wiry, but withal kindly-looking person, shrewd and clean,—­a North of Ireland Protestant, as she afterward told Clover.  In fact, her accent was rather Scotch than Irish.