"Waal, as to thet, some folks thinks too much o' book-larnin', _I_
say! Your fayther didn't hev much o' it to boast on, an' see what a good
pervider he was. Books is well enough, but sense is better, an'
forehandedness is best o' all."

As she talked, her needles clicked sharply amid the clouded blue yarn of
her half-formed sock, and her eyes, almost as sharp, kept roving about,
while the uneasy nose seemed determined to root out anything that might
escape them. Just then Molly came in breezily, her curls flying, and her
cheeks a bright pink, and, seeing the visitor, managed, all in one
instant, to give Sara a lightning glimpse of a most disgusted little
visage, even while she turned with a dimpling smile to say,--

"Why, Mrs. Updyke, is it you? Then that must be why Zeba Osterhaus and
Betty Pulcher were crossing the street in front of your house; I guess
they couldn't get in."

"Crossin' the street--where? Jest below?" beginning to wind up her yarn
hurriedly. "Hed they railly been to my haouse?"

"Well, I'm not sure, but I think so; I didn't ask 'em where they'd
been."

"And be they to thet little stuck-up Mis' Gurney's naow?"

"They went in there--yes."

"H'm. Jest bring my shawl, Sairay. Come to think on't, I've got an
arrant there myself this arternoon--come nigh to disremembering it.