Having no wish to see or speak to her mother again, the child blew out the
candle and stole silently up the stairway. At last Mrs. Mumpson took her
light and went noisily around, seeing to the fastenings of doors and windows.
"I know he is listening to every sound from me, and he shall learn what a
caretaker I am," she murmured softly.

Once out of doors in the morning, with his foot on the native heath of his
farm, Holcroft's hopefulness and courage always returned. He was half angry
with himself at his nervous irritation of the evening before. "If she becomes
so cranky that I can't stand her, I'll pay the three months' wages and clear
her out," he had concluded, and he went about his morning work with a grim
purpose to submit to very little nonsense.

Cider is akin to vinegar, and Mrs. Wiggins' liberal potations of the evening
before had evidently imparted a marked acidity to her temper. She laid hold
of the kitchen utensils as if she had a spite against them, and when Jane,
confiding in her friendliness shown so recently, came down to assist, she was
chased out of doors with language we forbear to repeat. Mrs. Mumpson,
therefore, had no intimation of the low state of the barometer in the region
of the kitchen. "I have taken time to think deeply and calmly," she murmured.
"The proper course has been made clear to me. He is somewhat uncouth; he is
silent and unable to express his thoughts and emotions--in brief, undeveloped;
he is awfully irreligious. Moth and rust are busy in this house; much that
would be so useful is going to waste. He must learn to look upon me as the
developer, the caretaker, a patient and healthful embodiment of female
influence. I will now begin actively my mission of making him an ornerment to
society. That mountainous Mrs. Viggins must be replaced by a deferential girl
who will naturally look up to me. How can I be a true caretaker--how can I
bring repose and refinement to this dwelling with two hundred pounds of female