Miss Carpenter was Dr. Willis' maiden aunt. Miss Rexton believed herself to be his affinity and hoped that he agreed with her. Mrs. Rexton was a chattel of her daughter's.
Myron Holder's duties were now made more manifold than ever, but she was well content that it should be so; only the long mile she walked night and morning from and to the village tired her greatly, taking the edge off her vitality in the morning and utterly exhausting her at night. So Mrs. Deans proposed that she should stay all night at the farm; not actuated by any kindly thought for Myron, but because, like the good financier that she was, she wanted to get her money's worth out of her.
As for old Mrs. Holder, she had no timid qualms about staying alone: she missed the little scraps of news, however, that Myron always had to tell, and--unconsciously--suffered from lack of some one to berate.
The summer passed slowly--autumn came. Mrs. Deans' boarders departed. Myron Holder once more walked the mile night and morning; she had had a hard summer's work. Her hands and wrists were reddened and coarsened; her face was very pale, and _bistre_ shades lingered about her eyes. But she and her grandmother had to live, and after December snows were blowing she still trudged the mile back and forth.
It was only by great chance that Mrs. Deans retained Myron's services; but her son, a loutish young man of twenty-two, had fallen from a hickory-nut tree and dislocated his hip.
The increasing attention he demanded, and the care of her poultry, and her accumulated sewing kept Mrs. Deans fully occupied. So Myron Holder continued her daily attendance at the Deans farm. January and February passed. March was blowing its wildest, when one day Myron Holder did not come to Mrs. Deans'.
The latter waited fuming, resolved, as she expressed it, to "give Myron Holder a fine hearing when she did come."
Mrs. Deans was always promising somebody or other a "hearing," which, by the bye, was an exceedingly misleading term, for in the conversation thus referred to the other party did the listening whilst Mrs. Deans talked.
The wild wind of the morning had intensified into a bitter sleet, which darted its blasts into the face like sharp-pointed lashes, when Mrs. Deans heard a knock at the side door. She opened it herself to find old Mrs. Holder, bent, wet, furious, standing in the slush. Mrs. Deans bade her come in, with a meaning look at the corn husk mat before the door.