We were obliged to hire a side-car by the day,
as two of our residences were over a mile apart; and the driver of
that vehicle was the only person, I think, who had any suspicion of
our sanity. In the intervals of teaching Francesca cooking, and
eating the results while the cook herself prudently lunched or dined
with her friends, Benella 'spring-cleaned' the lodge at the Old
Hall, scrubbed the gateposts, mended stone walls, weeded garden
beds, made bags for the brooms and dusters and mattresses, burned
coffee and camphor and other ill-smelling things in all the rooms,
and devoted considerable time to superintending my little maid, that
I might not feel neglected. We were naturally obliged, meanwhile,
to wait upon ourselves and keep our frocks in order; but as long as
the Derelict was so busy and happy, and so devoted to the universal
good, it would have been churlish and ungrateful to complain.
On leaving the Wee Hut, as Francesca had, with ostentatious modesty,
named her residence, she paid her landlady two pounds, and was
discomfited when the exuberant and impetuous woman embraced her in a
paroxysm of weeping gratitude.
"I cannot understand, Penelope, why she was so disproportionately
grateful, for I only gave her five shillings over the two pounds
rent."
"Yes, dear," I responded drily; "but you remember that the rent was
for the month, and you paid her two pounds five shillings for the
week.
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