Ch. 9 - Mrs. Wilkins's Minister

MR. POWER.

NEXT day Christie braved the lion in his den, otherwise the flinty
Flint, in her second-class boarding-house, and found that alarm and
remorse had produced a softening effect upon her. She was
unfeignedly glad to see her lost lodger safe, and finding that the
new friends were likely to put her in the way of paying her debts,
this much harassed matron permitted her to pack up her possessions,
leaving one trunk as a sort of hostage. Then, with promises to
redeem it as soon as possible, Christie said good-bye to the little
room where she had hoped and suffered, lived and labored so long,
and went joyfully back to the humble home she had found with the
good laundress.

All the following week Christie "chored round," as Mrs. Wilkins
called the miscellaneous light work she let her do. Much washing,
combing, and clean pinaforing of children fell to her share, and she
enjoyed it amazingly; then, when the elder ones were packed off to
school she lent a hand to any of the numberless tasks housewives
find to do from morning till night. In the afternoon, when other
work was done, and little Vic asleep or happy with her playthings,
Christie clapped laces, sprinkled muslins, and picked out edgings at
the great table where Mrs. Wilkins stood ironing, fluting, and
crimping till the kitchen bristled all over with immaculate frills
and flounces.

It was pretty delicate work, and Christie liked it, for Mrs. Wilkins
was an adept at her trade and took as much pride and pleasure in it
as any French blanchis-seuse tripping through the streets of Paris
with a tree full of coquettish caps, capes, and petticoats borne
before her by a half invisible boy.

Being women, of course they talked as industriously as they worked;
fingers flew and tongues clacked with equal profit and pleasure,
and, by Saturday, Christie had made up her mind that Mrs. Wilkins
was the most sensible woman she ever knew. Her grammar was an
outrage upon the memory of Lindley Murray, but the goodness of her
heart would have done honor to any saint in the calendar. She was
very plain, and her manners were by no means elegant, but good
temper made that homely face most lovable, and natural refinement of
soul made mere external polish of small account. Her shrewd ideas
and odd sayings amused Christie very much, while her good sense and
bright way of looking at things did the younger woman a world of
good.

Mr. Wilkins devoted himself to the making of shoes and the
consumption of food, with the silent regularity of a placid animal.
His one dissipation was tobacco, and in a fragrant cloud of smoke he
lived and moved and had his being so entirely that he might have
been described as a pipe with a man