Phineas whistled an aggravatingly attenuated note of surprise: "The
lady you are working for must be a deef-mute."

"She is. The same as you'll be some day. She's been dead three years."

The triumph with which she made this announcement put a momentary
quietus on Phineas, and enabled her to proceed:

"It's a widower gentleman with three children that I'm cookin' for,
and I ain't set eyes on one of 'em except at meal times since I hired
to 'em. Queerington's their names, out on College Street, right around
the corner from the Immanuel Church. He's a teacher or something, one
of them bookwormy men, whose head never pays no attention to what the
rest of him is doing. 'Take charge,' said he, 'of everything, do the
ordering, and cooking, and don't bother me with nothing.'"

"But does he bother you?" put in Phineas astutely; "that's the real
point."

"Wasn't I just tellin' you that he didn't? He's been off on a trip to
Virginia; gets home to-night. I've got the whole house in the pa'm of
my hand, from cellar to attic. Miss Connie, she's the oldest, as
flighty as a pidgeon and head so full of boys she don't pay no
attention to another livin' thing. Then there's Miss Hattie, the
second one, jes' at that spiteful thirteen age, but so busy peckin' on
her sister, she ain't no time left for me--"

"Thought you said there was three children," put in Maria mildly.