But Nimpo, intent only on getting off to school, still did not see her.  Mrs. Primkins went on to examine more closely, covering with her hands something which fell from the first fold, rustling, to her lap.  Very deliberately, then, as became this staid woman, did she read the letter from date to signature, twice over, and, ending as she had begun with a significant “Humph!” she refolded the letter, slipped in the inclosure, put it into her black silk work-bag which hung on the back of her chair, and resumed her dish-washing, for she was a genuine “Yankee housekeeper” of the old-fashioned sort, and scorned the assistance of what she called “hired help.”

Meanwhile, Nimpo finished her breakfast, gathered up her books, and hurried off to school, though it was an hour too early, never dreaming that the letter had anything to do with her.  After the morning work was done,—­the pans scalded and set in the sun; the house dusted from attic to cellar; the vinegar reheated and poured over the walnuts that were pickling; the apples drying on the shed roof, turned over; the piece of muslin ("bolt,” she called it) that was bleaching on the grass, thoroughly sprinkled; and, in fact, everything, indoors and out, in Mrs. Primkins’ domain, put into perfect order, that lady sat down to consider.  She drew the letter from the bag, and read it over, carefully inspecting a ten-dollar bill in her hands, and then leaned back, and indulged herself in a very unusual, indeed totally unheard-of, luxury—­a rest of ten minutes with idle hands!

If Nimpo had chanced to come in, she would have been alarmed at such an extraordinary state of things; but she was at that moment in her seat in the long school-house, with wrinkled brow, wrestling with sundry conundrums in her “Watts on the Mind,” little suspecting how her fate was hanging in the balance in Mrs. Primkins’ kitchen at this moment.  At last, Mrs. Primkins’ thin lips opened.  She was alone in the house, and she began to talk to herself: 

“Wants her to have a birthday-party!  Humph!  I must say I can’t see the good of pampering children’s folks do nowadays!  When I was young, now, we had something to think of besides fine clothes, unwholesome food, and worldly dissipation!  I must say I think Mis’ Rievor has some very uncommon notions!  Hows’ever,” she went on, contemplating fondly the bill she still held in her hand, “I do’ know’s I have any call to fret my gizzard if she chooses to potter away her money!  I don’t see my way clear to refuse altogether to do what she asks, ’s long ’s the child’s on my hands.  Ten dollars!  Humph!  She ’hopes it’ll be enough to provide a little supper for them!’ It’s my private opinion that it will, and a mite over for—­for—­other things,” she added, resolutely closing her lips with a snap.  “I aint such a shif’less manager’s all that comes to, I do hope!  ’T wont take no ten dollars to give a birthday-party in my house, I bet a cookey!”