‘I don’t know, I’m sure, sir, what you can do,’ said Mrs. Sims hopelessly.  ’The girls in these parts are far too proud to be hired to work in a house.  Why, the best folks in town mostly does their own work; there’s Mrs. Reid, so rich, just has a woman to do the charing; and Eelan—­that’s the beauty, you know—­makes the pies and keeps the house spick-and-span.  But you couldn’t keep your own house clean, could you, sir?—­let alone the meals; and you wouldn’t live long if you hadn’t them.’

As the days wore on, the schoolmaster became more urgent in his appeals for advice, but he did not get encouragement to expect to find a servant of any sort, for the widow was too sincere to suggest hope when she felt none, and the difficulty was not an easy one to solve.  She made various inquiries among her friends.  It was suggested that the master should go to ‘the boarding-house,’ which was a large barn-like structure, in which business men who did not happen to have families slept in uncomfortable rooms and dined at a noisy table.  Mrs. Sims reported this suggestion faithfully, and added:  ‘But it’s my belief it would kill you outright.’

The schoolmaster looked at his books and the trim arrangements of his neat house, and negatived the proposition with more decision than he had ever shown before.

After a while, Mrs. Sims received another idea of quite a different nature; but she did not report this so hastily—­it required more finesse.  It was entrusted to her care with many injunctions to be ‘tactful,’ and it was suggested that if there was a mess made of it, it would be her fault.  The idea was nothing less than that it would be necessary for the master to marry; and it was the gaunt Miss Ann Blakely herself who confided to his present housekeeper that she should have no objections to become his bride, provided he wrote her a pretty enough, humble sort of letter that she could show to her friends.

‘For, mind you, I’d not go cheap to the like of him,’ she said, raising an admonishing finger, as she took leave of her friend:  ’I’d rather remain single, far.’

‘I think he could write the letter,’ replied Mrs. Sims; ’leastways, if he can’t do that, I don’t know what he can do, poor man.’

Having been solemnly enjoined to be careful, Mrs. Sims thought so long over what she was to say before she said it, that she made herself quite nervous, and when she began, she forgot the half.  Over her sewing in the sitting-room one evening she commenced the subject with a flustered little run of words.  ’I’m sure such an amiable man as you are, sir, almost three years I’ve been in this house and never had a word from you, not one word’—­it is to be remarked that the widow did not intend to assert that the schoolmaster had been mute—­’and you are nice in all your ways, too; if I do say it, quite the gentleman.’

‘Oh!’ said the schoolmaster, in a tone of surprise, not because he had heard what she said, but because he was surprised that she should begin to talk to him when he was correcting his books.