replied the widow, plaintively; “but I have said that we felt lonesome, Mr. Purtett bein’ gone, and if the new minister —”
Here she paused. The cut of Wade’s jib was unclerical. He did not stoop, like a new minister. He was not pallid, meagre, and clad in unwholesome black, like the same. His bronzed face was frank and bold and unfamiliar with speculations on Original Sin or Total Depravity.
“I am not the new minister,” said Wade, smiling slightly over his moustache; “but a new Superintendent for the Foundry.”
“Mr. Whiffler is goin’?” exclaimed Mrs. Purtett.
She looked at her daughter, who gave a little sob and ran out of the room.
“What makes my daughter Belle feel bad,” says the widow, “is, that she had a friend, — well, it isn’t too much to say that they was as good as engaged, — and he was foreman of the Foundry finishin’-shop. But somehow Whiffler spoilt him, just as he spoils everything he touches; and last winter, when Belle was away, William Tarbox — that’s his name, and his head is runnin’ over with inventions — took to spreein’ and liquor, and got ashamed of himself, and let down from a foreman to a hand, and is all the while lettin’ down lower.”
The widow’s heart thus opened. Wade walked in as consoler. This also opened the lodgings to him. He was presently installed in the large and small front-rooms up-stairs, unpacking his traps, and making himself permanently at home.
