"I suppose
you think it would be cheaper to marry me than to keep a hired girl.
Everybody knows you're the closest man in Eagle County; but I guess
you're not going to get your mending done for you that way twice."
Mr. Royall did not move while she spoke. His face was ash-coloured and
his black eyebrows quivered as though the blaze of her scorn had blinded
him. When she ceased he held up his hand.
"That'll do--that'll about do," he said. He turned to the door and took
his hat from the hat-peg. On the threshold he paused. "People ain't been
fair to me--from the first they ain't been fair to me," he said. Then he
went out.
A few days later North Dormer learned with surprise that Charity had
been appointed librarian of the Hatchard Memorial at a salary of eight
dollars a month, and that old Verena Marsh, from the Creston Almshouse,
was coming to live at lawyer Royall's and do the cooking.
III
It was not in the room known at the red house as Mr. Royall's "office"
that he received his infrequent clients.
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