"Why," replied Mrs. Slogan, with undisguised satisfaction in her tone,
"Mis' Simpkins says Westerfelt is goin' with Ab Lithicum's daughter
Lizzie."

"Well," said Slogan, with a short, gurgling laugh, "what's wrong with
that? A feller as well fixed as Westerfelt is ort to be allowed to
look around a little, as folks say in town when they are a-tradin'.
Lord, sometimes I lie awake at night thinkin' what a good time I mought
'a' had an' what I mought 'a' run across ef I hadn't been in sech a
blamed fool hurry! Lawsy me, I seed a deef an' dumb woman in town
t'other day, and, for a wonder, she wasn't married, nur never had been!
I jest looked at that woman an' my mouth fairly watered."

"Yo're a born fool," snorted Mrs. Slogan.

"What's that got to do with John Wester--"

"Sh--" broke in Mrs. Dawson. "I heer Sally a-comin'."

"But I _want_ 'er to heer me," cried the woman appealed to, just as the
subject of the conversation entered the room from the passage which
connected the two parts of the house. "It'll do 'er good, I hope, to
know folks think she has made sech a goose of 'erse'f."

"What have I done now, Aunt Clarissa?" sighed the frail-looking girl,
as she took off her sun-bonnet and stood in the centre of the room,
holding a bunch of wild flowers and delicate maiden-hair fern leaves in
her hand.