The
Ramapo, that looks so peaceful now, overflowed its banks then, and ran
like a mill-race. I don't know how they manage, but Archie is kept at
school, and his mother does everything from ironing white frocks for
summer boarders to making jellies and preserves for people in town, who
send her orders."
"Is she an educated woman?" inquired Grace.
"That she is. Mrs. Vanderhoven is not only highly educated, but very
elegant and accomplished. None of her attainments, except those in the
domestic line, are available, unhappily, when earning a living is in
question, and she can win her bread only by these housekeeping efforts."
"Might I go and see her?"
"Why yes, dear, you and the others not only might, but should. She will
need help. I'll call and consult Mrs. Raeburn about her to-morrow. She
isn't a woman one can treat like a pauper--as well born as any one in
the land, and prouder than Lucifer. It's too bad Archie had to meet with
this accident; but boys are fragile creatures."
And the doctor, shaking the ashes from his pipe, went off to sit with
his wife before going to bed.
"I do wonder," said Grace to Eva, "what the boy was doing with the old
Puritan pitcher, and why a Vanderhoven should have boasted of coming
over in the _Mayflower_?"
Eva said: "They're Dutch and English, Grace. The Vanderhovens are from
Holland, but Archie's mother was a Standish, or something of that sort,
and her kinsfolk, of course, belonged to the _Mayflower_ crowd.
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