Mrs. Duds Sister | Page 5

you very busy in the morning, always?"
"There are different things," she murmured, still looking at her spoon.
"I have letters to write--I keep up with a good many old friends in
Binghamville and Albany, where I lived with my married niece ten
years, till they moved West. I loved her children; I half brought them
up. One died; I can't seem to get over it--" Her eyes filled, and she

made no effort to cover two tears that slipped over.
Varian took her hand again. "I know about that--I know!" he said
softly.
"Then there are my flowers; I do so enjoy the beds and the greenhouses
here," she went on more cheerfully. "The gardeners are very kind to
me--I think they like to have me come in. Mr. McFadden gives me a
good many slips and cuttings. I love flowers dearly. Then I read a good
deal, and there is always some little thing to do for the young girls here.
They--the ones I know--come in for a moment while I mend something,
or pin their things in the back, and it's surprising how much there is to
do! They fly about so they can't stop to take care of their things. They
talk to me while I set them straight, and it's very interesting. I tell
Lizzie I go out a great deal, just hearing about their adventures, when
she drops in to see me. She never forgets me; she brings somebody to
my sitting-room every day or so that she thinks I'd enjoy meeting--and I
always do. She never makes a mistake."
"Oh, she's wonderful," Varian agreed easily. "There's nobody like Mrs.
Dud, of course."
She stopped her work a moment and looked curiously at him.
"What do you mean by that?" she asked. "You all say it--in just that
way; but I don't think I quite see what you mean. Why is she wonderful?
Because she looks so young?"
"That, in the first place," Varian returned, with a smile, "but not only
that."
"Of course that is very strange," she mused. "Now Lizzie is three years
older than I. You would never think it, would you?"
"No," he agreed, still smiling; "but then, Mrs. Dud looks younger than
everybody. It is her specialty. I think what we mean," he continued, "is
her amazing capacity; she does so much, so ridiculously much, and so
much better than other people. We try to keep up with things--your

sister is a little bit ahead. She seems to have always been doing the very
latest thing, you see. And all her responsibilities, her various affairs--it
makes one's head swim! The women have set themselves a tremendous
field to cover nowadays, and when one succeeds so admirably--" He
paused.
She shook her head thoughtfully.
"But everything is done for her!" she protested. "Why, I have never yet
seen all the servants in this house! And you know there is a
housekeeper? Lizzie sees her a little while in the morning, that's all.
And she never sews a stitch--there's a seamstress here all the time, you
know, and that has nothing to do with the clothes that come home in
boxes. And little Dudley has his tutor, and his old nurse that looks after
his clothes. What is it that she does to make it so wonderful?"
He only smiled at her perplexity, and she added confidentially:
"Lizzie wanted me to go to her dressmaker, but I didn't like the idea of
a man, to begin with, and then I knew Miss Simms would feel so hurt.
She lives in Albany, and she's made my dresses for so long that I
thought, though she may not be so stylish, I'd better keep up with her;
wouldn't you?"
A perfectly unreasonable tenderness surged through his heart. How
sweet she was!
"If she made that dress, I certainly should!" he declared.
She smoothed the crisp lavender folds deprecatingly.
"Oh, this is only a cotton dress," she said. "But she made my gray silk,
too, and Lizzie herself said it fitted beautifully."
She took up the bottle again: it was nearly empty.
"Now my mother," she began, "she was wonderful, if you like. Do you
know what my mother used to do? We lived on the farm, you know,

like yours, and most of the work of that farm mother did. She did the
cooking--for all the hired hands, too; she made the butter, and took care
of the hens; she made the candles and the soap; she made the carpets
and all our clothes--my brothers', too; and she put up preserves and
jellies and cordials, and did the most beautiful embroidery; I have some
of mother's embroidered collars, and I can't do anything like them."
"It was tremendous," he said. "My Aunt Delia did that, too."