Now he bent forward, and
peered at his hostess.
"Isabel is well?" he began tentatively.
"Well enough! But, my sakes! I'd ruther she'd be sick abed or paraletic
than carry on as she does. Slack? My soul! I wisht you could see her
sink closet! I wisht you could take one look over the dirty dishes she
leaves round, not washed from one week's end to another!"
"But she's always neat. She looks like an--an angel!"
Isabel could not at once suppress the gratified note which crept of
itself into her voice.
"That's the outside o' the cup an' platter," she said knowingly. "I
thank my stars she ain't likely to marry. She'd turn any man's house
upside down inside of a week."
The parson made a deprecating noise in his throat. He seemed about to
say something, and thought better of it.
"It may be," he hesitated, after a moment,--"it may be her studies
take up too much of her time. I have always thought these elocution
lessons"--
"Oh, my land!" cried Isabel, in passionate haste. She leaned forward as
if she would implore him. "That's her only salvation. That's the makin'
of her. If you stop her off there, I dunno but she'd jine a circus or
take to drink! Don't you dast to do it! I'm in the family, an' I know.
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