The slip of a colleen fresh from Kerry had grown old
with her mistress, until the casual bond between mistress and
servant had changed into something deeper; more in keeping with
a better-mannered age than ours. One could not imagine Miss
Cornelia without a Lizzie to grumble at and cherish--or Lizzie
without a Miss Cornelia to baby and scold with the privileged
frankness of such old family servitors. The two were at once a
contrast and a complement. Fifty years of American ways had not
shaken Lizzie's firm belief in banshees and leprechauns or tamed
her wild Irish tongue; fifty years of Lizzie had not altered Miss
Cornelia's attitude of fond exasperation with some of Lizzie's
more startling eccentricities. Together they may have been, as
one of the younger Van Gorder cousins had, irreverently put it,
"a scream," but apart each would have felt lost without the other.
"Now what do you mean--if that were all of it, Lizzie?" queried
Miss Cornelia sharply as she took her letters from the tray.
Lizzie's face assumed an expression of doleful reticence.
"It's not my place to speak," she said with a grim shake of her
head, "but I saw my grandmother last night, God rest her--plain as
life she was, the way she looked when they waked her--and if it
was my doing we'd be leaving this house this hour!"
"Cheese-pudding for supper--of course you saw your grandmother!"
said Miss Cornelia crisply, slitting open the first of her letters
with a paper knife.
Pages:
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39