I went in search of Mrs. Flaxman, whom I
found still in the breakfast-room, and in a rather nervous condition,
busy about the china, which she rarely permitted the servant to wash.
"Shall we stay long in New York?" I asked, very cheerfully, the fifty
dollars I held in my hand, and the easy way I had got off with Mr.
Winthrop, making me quite elated.
"One can never tell. Mr. Winthrop is very uncertain; we may return in a
day or two, or we may stay a fortnight."
"You are not anxious to go?" I questioned, seeing her troubled face.
"Not just now, in the height of the pickling and preserving season.
Reynolds has excellent judgment, but I prefer looking after such things
myself."
She looked wistfully at me while she dried her china. "May I help you,
Mrs. Flaxman? It never occurred to me before that I might share your
burdens. I should learn to have cares, as well as others."
"I always like to have you with me, dear. Sometimes I try to make myself
believe God has given you to me, instead of my own little Medoline."
"Had you a daughter once?"
"Yes; and, like yourself, named after your own dear mother."
"Oh, Mrs. Flaxman, and you never told me. Was she grown up like me?"
"She was only six years old when she died, just a month after her father;
but the greater grief benumbed me so I scarce realized my second loss
until months afterward."
"Is it so terrible, then, to lose one's husband?"
"It depends greatly on the husband."
"The widow Larkum cries constantly after hers, but he was bread-winner,
too.
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