--disappointed Stephen, dear, noble old Stephen?




XII

Gold and Pinchbeck


Just then Mrs. Brooks groaned in the next room and called Rose, who went in to
minister to her real needs, or to condole with her fancied ones, whichever
course of action appeared to be the more agreeable at the moment.

Mrs. Brooks desired conversation, it seemed, or at least she desired an
audience for a monologue, for she recognized no antiphonal obligations on the
part of her listeners. The doctors were not doing her a speck of good, and she
was just squandering money in a miserable boarding-house, when she might be
enjoying poor health in her own home; and she did n't believe her hens were
receiving proper care, and she had forgotten to pull down the shades in the
spare room, and the sun would fade the carpet out all white before she got
back, and she did n't believe Dr. Smith's magnetism was any more use than a
cat's foot, nor Dr. Robinson's electricity any better than a bumblebee's buzz,
and she had a great mind to go home and try Dr. Lord from Bonnie Eagle; and
there was a letter for Rose on the bureau, which had come before supper, but
the shiftless, lazy, worthless landlady had forgotten to send it up till just
now.

The letter was from Mite Shapley, but Rose could read only half of it to Mrs.
Brooks, little beside the news that the Waterman barn, the finest barn in the