But no worry of this sort could keep her awake very long, and after a
night of sound and healthful sleep she told her host and hostess, the
next morning at breakfast, of the Mr. Lodloe who had kindly undertaken
to bring her a nurse-maid.
"Lodloe," repeated Mr. Petter. "It strikes me that I have heard the
Rockmores mention that name. Is it a Germantown family?"
"I really do not know," answered Mrs. Cristie; "he is from New York."
Here she stopped. She was of a frank and truthful nature, and very much
wished to say that she knew nothing whatever of Mr. Lodloe, but she was
also of a kindly and grateful disposition, and she very well knew that
such a remark would be an extremely detrimental one to the young man;
so, being in doubt, she resolved to play trumps, and in cases like this
silence is generally trumps.
Mrs. Petter had a mind which could project itself with the rapidity of
light into the regions of possibilities, and if the possibilities
appeared to her desirable her mind moved at even greater velocity. It
was plain to her that there must be something between this young widow
and the young man who was going to bring her a nurse-maid; and if this
were the case, nothing must be allowed to interfere with the admission
of said young man as a guest at the Squirrel Inn.
[Illustration: A GREEK IN AN OUTHOUSE.]
Mrs. Cristie did not want to talk any more on this subject. Nothing
would have pleased her better at that moment than to hear that Mr.
Lodloe had been unable to find her a suitable girl and that business had
called him to New York.
"Mr. Petter," she exclaimed, "I was told yesterday that you kept a Greek
in an outhouse. What on earth does that mean?"
Here Mrs. Petter laughed abruptly, and Mr. Petter slightly lifted his
brow.
"Who could have told you such nonsense?" he said. "There is no Greek
here. It is true that a Greek scholar lives in my summer-house, but that
is very different from keeping a Greek in an outhouse."
"And he's always late to breakfast," said Mrs. Petter; "I believe if we
sat down at the table at nine o'clock he would come in just as we were
finishing."
"How does it happen," said Mrs. Cristie, "that he lives in the
summer-house?"
"He does not know the Rockmores of Germantown," said Mrs. Petter.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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