"And, Miss Elsie, I wish you hadn't let what I've confided to you sort o' set you against your aunt. Everybody has their failin's, they do say, and after all if she don't do worse than eat choc'late-creams and munch headache-tablets, why, she's pretty harmless as ladies go. Mis' Jonathan Metcalf as goes to his church is just as yellow and I don't know but what yellower, and bedizened as well, and a regular shrew in her own house." "Katy, I don't know what you mean," Elsie returned with dignity. "Well, you call her Mis' Middleton, when you speak of her, with your voice like a buzz-saw, and it ain't because you're high and mighty with me, 'cause you ain't. You're like a sister to me, and I ain't once thought of up and leavin' sence you come as I did frequent before. And besides, when you talk of himself, you always say Uncle John. And she's good at heart, Miss Elsie; honest, she is. She'd be just as good as himself if she knew as much. Her heart's in the right place, and she takes to you and don't mistrust you don't to her." "Well, I mustn't stay here and keep you from 'redding' up your kitchen, as you call it," said Elsie, rather neatly as she believed. [Illustration: "Well, I mustn't stay here and keep you from 'redding' up your kitchen, as you call it."] "Oh, there's plenty of time for that," Kate assured her cheerfully; "if not to-day, why there's another comin'." CHAPTER XVIII The kitchen wasn't _redd up_ that day nor the next. It remained, indeed, a sight to make a good housekeeper weep, and closets, cupboards, clothes-presses, and the celebrated servants' parlor remained untidy conglomerations of rubbish; but the general appearance of the place continued to improve. Kate's gratitude for the regular receipt of her wages was continual and practical. A chance visitor now could enter any room in the front of the house at any hour, and there was much comment among the people upon the change. It was generally agreed that Elsie Moss must have been very carefully trained by her stepmother to bring about such a marvel. And presently some of the creditors of the household began to wonder if her influence couldn't be extended. One and another began to drop hints to Elsie which became so broad that even one quite unaccustomed to any such thing could not fail to understand. The butcher's wife, the grocer's sister, and the draper's head bookkeeper had all but informed her in so many words that unless their respective relatives or patrons were paid in full by the 1st of November, they would present their bills to Mr. Middleton, if they had to do so in the vestibule of the church.