“The bank said she was all right,” said Miss Martha triumphantly. The bank’s endorsement was her trump card; it left criticism without a leg to stand on. She was prompted to testify to Mrs. Shields’s credit on other grounds. “She’s been very nice about the house, not finding fault and not asking for anything, you know.” “What, not a thing?” Mrs. Seabury exclaimed on a high note of astonishment. “That old rookery! Well, of course, I don’t mean it’s not a lovely house,” she amended hastily. “Only naturally, you’ve never spent any more on it than you could help, I suppose. It’s weird her not wanting _some_ repairs. She can’t be much of a housekeeper. Maybe that’s just as well, though. She won’t mind living next door to the Gowdys. Has she ever said anything about them?” “I haven’t inquired,” said Miss Martha, stiffening again. “Oh, well, she probably will later on,” Mrs. Seabury prophesied blithely; she was not a member of Saint Luke’s congregation. “Unless she’s a saint, she’ll have trouble over the ashes or the garbage or the children or something.” Mrs. Shields, however, was apparently bent on justifying her claim to being “awful easy to get along with,” if that phrase connotes living quietly and seeking no one’s acquaintance. She went about domestic duties with an extraordinary zest, cooked, cleaned, ran up and down stairs endlessly; and spent hours in the garden applying her patently unskilled energies to weeding and trimming it, or motionless in some coign of vantage, watching the birds. Except for these robins and jays and an occasional squirrel, she had no visitors, and defeated expectations by never publicly falling foul of the Gowdy ash-heap, the Gowdy garbage, or the Gowdy children, whatever her private attitude toward them. Mrs. Gowdy, with characteristic sweet thoughtfulness--everybody acclaimed her as the ideal wife for a clergyman--introduced herself over the hedge after a few days with a smiling word or two about the other’s courage in coming to live alongside such a houseful. “We used to be afraid our youngsters were a good deal of a trial to Miss Wilcox.” “I don’t mind ’em, only when it sounds like somebody was getting hurt,” said Mrs. Shields, whereat the experienced mother began to laugh. “Oh, children are always getting hurt, you know. Mine seem to be made of steel and india-rubber. They stand everything. Luella--that’s the maid I have now--worries over them more than I do! She’s so good with them, and perfectly devoted to Wilbur, especially.” Mrs. Shields looked at her uncertainly. “Well, Luella ain’t always on the job, is she? I don’t see how she can be.” “Oh, yes, she’s very efficient. I hardly ever give an order. Sometimes coloured people are like that, wonderful with children and about the housework too.” With other agreeable generalities, she moved away; and Mrs. Shields, after a speculative stare at the retreating back, shook her own overdressed head soberly, and moved away, too.