Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley | Page 5

can do to help your mother."
"If you could git us more washin's," exclaimed Amarilly eagerly, "it would help heaps. We could take in lots more than we do now."
"Let me think. You see we keep a laundress; but--does your mother do up very fine things--like laces--carefully?"
"She does," replied Amarilly glibly. "She kin do 'em orful keerful, and we dry the colored stuffs in the shade. And our clo'es come out snow- white allers, and we never tears laces nor git in too much bluin' or starch the way some folks does."
"Then I'll give you my address and you can come for my fine waists; and let me see, I am sure I can get St. Mark's laundry work for you, too."
"You're orful good, Miss King. This is where we hev to turn down this 'ere court."
The "court" appeared to Miss King more like an alley. The advent of the brougham in the little narrow right-of-way filled every window with hawk-eyed observers. About the Jenkins's doorstep was grouped the entire household from the Boarder to the baby, and the light, musical voices of children floating through the soft spring air fell pleasantly upon the ears of the young settlement worker.
"So this is where you live, Amarilly?" she asked, her eyes sparkling as she focussed them on the family. "You needn't come for the washing the first time. I will bring it myself so I can see all your little brothers. Be sure to come to the Guild next Saturday, and then I'll have the rug for you to take home. Goodbye, dear."
Knowing that she was observed by myriad eyes, Amarilly stepped loftily from the brougham and made a sweeping stage courtesy to her departing benefactress.
"Are you on the stage now, Amarilly?" asked Co eagerly as she came to meet her sister.
"No; but she," with a wave of her hand toward the swiftly gliding electric, "is agoin to help me git eddicated, and she has give me a beautiful rug fer the Boarder, and we're agoin' to hev her waists to wash, and Mr. St. Mark's clo'es, and she told all the scholars to sew like me 'cause' I sewed the best, and I've larned how to set our table. We mustn't stack up the knife and fork and spoon on ends any more. The knife goes to the right, the fork to the left of the plate, and the spoon goes back of it and the tumbler and the napkin, when you has 'em, to the right."
"I do declare, Amarilly, if it ain't jest like a fairy story!" cried Mrs. Jenkins enthusiastically. "You allers did strike luck."
"You bet!" cried Bobby admiringly. "Things go some where Amarilly is."
Amarilly was happier even than she had been on the night of the eventful matin��e day. The electric brougham had seemed a veritable fairy godmother's coach to her. But it was not the ride that stood uppermost in her memory as she lay awake far into the night; it was the little word of endearment uttered in caressing cadence.
"No one ain't ever called me that afore," she murmured wistfully. "I s'pose ma ain't hed time, and thar was no one else to keer."
Impulsively and tenderly her thin little arm encircled the baby sleeping beside her.
"Dear!" she whispered in an awed tone. "Dear!"
Iry answered with a sleepy, cooing note.
CHAPTER III
Colette King was not one whom the voice of the people of St. Mark's would proclaim as the personification of their ideal of a pastor's wife, yet John Meredith loved her with the love that passeth all understanding. Perhaps the secret of her charm for him lay in the fact that she treated him as she did other men--men who did not wear a surplice. And yet his surplice and all that pertained thereto were matters of great moment to the rector of St. Mark's. Little traces of his individuality were evident in the fashioning of this clerical garment. A pocket for his handkerchief was stitched on the left side.
The flowers, the baptismal font, the altar cloth, and the robes of the vested choir he insisted should be immaculate in whiteness. White, the color of the lily, he declared, was the emblem of purity. There were members of his flock so worldly minded as to whisper insinuatingly that white was extremely becoming to Colette King. Many washerwomen had applied for the task of laundering the ecclesiastical linen; many had been tried and found wanting. So after her interview with Amarilly, Colette asked the rector of St. Mark's to call at her house "on important business."
From the time he was ten years old until he became rector of St. Mark's, John Meredith had been a member of the household of his guardian, Henry King, and had ever cheerfully and gladly borne with the caprices of the little Colette.
He