dark gaze did not waver. “I was figuring to have her in here at first, sir, till we saw just where we could use her best.” “Well, you go ahead and hire her, Luke,” the old[66] gentleman was hearty. “You go right ahead and hire her, and if there isn’t anything she can do, why you make up something! Nice girl like that, pretty girl, too, seems to me I remember—red hair?” [66] “Yes, sir,” said Luke steadily. “All right, then, I’ll leave it to you, Luke!” He went away well pleased with himself. It would be, no doubt, another case of poor Minnie, but with Luke at the books they could afford a passenger. He found, however, directly Glen Darrow was installed at the Altonia, that it was not in the very least another case of poor Minnie. The girl was as silent as young Manders, almost as efficient, and with an equally hearty appetite for work. It worried the old gentleman a little; here was a girl who was his daughter’s sort—hadn’t she gone to Miss Josephine’s when they were little tads? Certainly she had! Well, then!—turned out into the cold world to earn her bread and butter! How’d he feel if it was his Nancy, eh? And a pretty piece, too, with that blaze of red hair round her face and those eyes and that skin, by gad! But when all was said and done, Glen Darrow seemed to be the kind of girl who could look out for herself. Pleasant enough, or at least civil enough, but—well, edgy. The doctor had been a crusty old customer; girl was a chip of the old block. It was a matter of satisfaction to Mr. ’Gene[67] Carey that his kinswoman had gone to live with her within the first year of her orphanhood; Ada Tenafee, he felt as did his Cousin Amos, the head of the clan, was a fine woman, a fine, high-spirited woman, all Tenafee, and a fatherless, motherless girl could not be more wisely and genteelly guarded and guided. [67] It was, indeed, a most excellent arrangement for the woman as well as the girl: Miss Ada punctiliously paid her board, and—in the first week of her occupancy—sent the yellow slattern Emma-leen packing and installed a decent black woman in her place. The hideous house became clean and orderly again, meals were well cooked and served, and the very presence of a Tenafee in a Darrow house had a soothing—almost a sanctifying effect. Glen, feeling the pressure of her father’s prejudice, had faithfully tried half a dozen boarders before she asked Miss Ada to live with
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