they has to bow and scrape that way, a-misterin' and a-missin' one
another, they're hiding somethin'; they ain't actin' open. So I was
beginnin' to think mebbe she wanted to marry you and----"

"Go on reading--please read to us," pleaded Mary.

"Yes, do read to us," I echoed, for the position was a new one to me,
and at best I am awkward and slow-witted where women are concerned. I
could not adroitly turn the old man's wandering speculation into a
general laugh as Weston would have done. My best was to break in
rudely.

"Well--if I must," Luther said, opening the great book across his knees.

A long silence followed. I heard the solemn ticking of the clock on
the mantel behind me; I heard Mary laughing softly in her retreat
beyond the table; I heard Luther, now bending over his book, mumbling
to himself a few words of the text.

"It is about the faymine in Injy," he said at last, holding his place
on the page with a long, thin forefinger, and looking up at me. "There
are three volumes, and this is the second. The third is yit to come.
I pay a dollar a year and every year I gits a new volume. It's a grand
book, too, Mark. It was wrote by one of our brethren, Brother Matthias
Pennel, who went to Injy in charge of a shipload of grain gathered by
our people for the sufferin' heathen. The first volume tells all about
the gittin' up of the subscription and the sailin' of the wessel.
Brother Matthias is a grand writer, and he tells all about Injy and the
heathen, and how the wessel reached the main place there--what's the
place, Mary?--you're allus good on geography!"