Such a desolate two weeks as it was after the children went! It didn't seem as if we could ever get used to the silence, and mealtimes were so forlorn that we practically boarded with Mrs. Bassett. But lately things have been happening—not to me, of course, nor yet, what is remarkable, considering the nature of events, to Ethelwyn. They are chiefly concerned with our handmaid in the kitchen.
The first intimation we had of the exciting course of events was a scrap of paper I picked up on the dining-room floor. I supposed it one of Ethelwyn's nature notes, which blow about the house like autumn leaves, and unfolded it idly. The words that met my startled eyes were these, "For your rosy cheeks and curly hair I always did admire." I carried the paper to Ethelwyn at once.
"Do you think," I said sternly, "that it is fair to him to leave such things where anybody can read them?"
"What him?" asked Ethelwyn.
"I don't know, I'm sure, I haven't been enlightened. Possibly this will recall it to your memory."
Ethelwyn read the bit of paper with a bewildered face.
"But this isn't mine," she said. "People don't admire—I mean—well, when people talk about my hair they generally say red, not curly."
"But you are the only one who has rosy cheeks."
Ethelwyn gazed at me pityingly.
"It is evident," she said, "that you are not acquainted with works of the imagination. This, my dear, is plainly intended for Minerva."
I scorned the idea. "It can't be, Ethelwyn. Why, she's as black as midnight; the reddest rose that ever bloomed couldn't prevail against such undiluted ebony as hers."
"It's easily proved," Ethelwyn replied. "We can ask her, you know."
So we carried the paper to the kitchen; to my amazement, Ethelwyn was right. Minerva welcomed it effusively. Incidentally she furnished an explanation of what followed later.
"I done thought I seed the end of that," she said, tossing her head.
"But, Minerva, is he a nice young man?" Ethelwyn questioned gravely.
"'Deed, Miss, I dunno. I ain't troubling myself none 'bout him en his sassy letters. I guess if I ain't fin' a better-lookin' nigger than him I'll trabble alone all my days."
"There's somebody else then," Ethelwyn cried, with the never-failing interest of the feminine in all matters of the heart.
Minerva turned and stared in honest amazement.
"Land o' Goshen, honey!" she exclaimed, "deyse allus niggers
