Except that she has
not parted with her sunny common-sense, she is quite a new person. Of
course I could not have objected to it, but I was afraid that she might
take it into her head to instruct the Infant in vocal music after the
manner of the locustlike sounds that you hear coming over the lowered
tops of school windows as soon as the weather grows warm, or else take
to practising scales herself, for we had only known the technical part
of her calling. In short, we feared that we should be do-re-mi-ou'd past
endurance. Instead of which, scraps of the gayest of ballads float over
the knoll in the evening, and the Infant's little shrill pipe is being
inoculated with real music, _via_ Mother Goose melodies sung in a
delightfully subdued contralto.
From the third day after her arrival people began to call upon Maria. I
made such a positive declaration of surrender of all matters pertaining
to the household, including curiosity, when Maria took charge,--and she
in return promised that we should not be bothered with anything not "of
vital importance to our interests,"--that, unless she runs through the
housekeeping money before the time, I haven't a ghost of an excuse for
asking questions,--but I do wonder how she manages! Also, to whom the
shadows belong that cross the south piazza at night or intercept the
rays of the dining-room lamp, our home beacon of dark nights.
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