"Does not Mr. Baily take any part whatever in his sister's work?" Mr.
Spangler said. He was calling upon Mrs. Barkley, and the conversation
turned upon the guests whom he had met at the tea-party.
"That is a very foolish question," said Mrs. Barkley; "but of course
you don't know poor David, or you wouldn't have asked it. David means
well, but he has no mind. Still, he has tried, poor fellow." Then she
recited the story of David's failures. "There is really nothing that
he is capable of doing," she ended, thoughtfully; "though I think, if
his eyes hadn't given out, he might have made a good minister. For
David is a pious man, and he likes to visit."
A faint red came into Mr. Spangler's cheeks; although he had been in
Old Chester nearly a month, he had not yet become acclimated to Mrs.
Barkley. The watchword of duty made him call, but he closed her front
door behind him with an emphasis which was not dutiful.
"That's done!" he said; and thought to himself how much pleasanter than
parochial visits were educational matters.
Mr. Spangler felt their importance so deeply that he spent two more
mornings watching Miss Ellen's pupils work out examples on the
blackboard and hearing them read, turn about, in the Fourth Reader. In
fact, the next month was a pretty happy time for Miss Ellen's girls.
"I skipped to the bottom of the page in 'Catiline's Reply,'" Lydia
Wright said, giggling, "and she never knew it!"
The girls were tremendously interested but not very sympathetic, for
"she's so dreadfully old!" they told each other. Had Miss Ellen been
Maria's age and had a beau (by this time they called Mr. Spangler Miss
Ellen's beau, the impudent little creatures!), how different it would
have been! But Miss Ellen was forty. "Did you ever know anything so
perfectly absurd?" said the older girls. And the second-class girls
said they certainly never did. So when Mr. Spangler came and listened
to recitations we poked one another, and put out our tongues behind our
Readers, and made ourselves extremely obnoxious--if dear Miss Ellen had
had the eyes to see it, which, indeed, she had not. She was very
absent in those days; but she did her work faithfully, and saw to
David's new coat, and asked Mrs. Smily to tea, not only to help out
Miss Harriet at the Stuffed-Animal House, but because David told her a
piteous tale of Mrs. Smily's loneliness and general forlornness. David
had had it directly from Mrs. Smily herself, and had been greatly moved
by it; she had told him that this was a sad and unfriendly world.
"But I am sure your brother-in-law's family is much attached to you?"
David said, comfortingly.
Then poor Mrs. Smily suddenly began to cry. "Yes; but I am afraid I
can't live at my brother-in-law's any longer. His wife is--is tired of
me," said the poor little creature.