Chapter IV
THE blare of the circus band had been a sore temptation to Mandy
Jones all afternoon and evening. Again and again it had dragged
her from her work to the study window, from which she could see
the wonders so tantalisingly near. Mandy was housekeeper for the
Rev. John Douglas, but the unwashed supper dishes did not
trouble her, as she watched the lumbering elephants, the restless
lions, the long-necked giraffes and the striped zebras, that came
and went in the nearby circus lot. And yet, in spite of her own
curiosity, she could not forgive her vagrant "worse half," Hasty,
who had been lured from duty early in the day. She had once
dubbed him Hasty, in a spirit of derision, and the name had clung
to him. The sarcasm seemed doubly appropriate to-night, for he
had been away since ten that morning, and it was now past nine.
The young pastor for a time had enjoyed Mandy's tirades against
her husband, but when she began calling shrilly out of the window
to chance acquaintances for news of him, he slipped quietly into
the next room to finish to-morrow's sermon. Mandy renewed her
operations at the window with increased vigour when the pastor
had gone. She was barely saved from pitching head foremost into
the lot, by the timely arrival of Deacon Strong's daughter, who
managed, with difficulty, to connect the excited woman's feet
with the floor.
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