"Well," said Miss Betsy, with a snort, "_that's_ to be my business, eh?
I'll have my hands full; a pearter couple o' lads a'n't to be found this
side o' Nottin'gam. They might ha' growed up wild on the Barrens, for
all the manners they've got."

Sally knew that this criticism was true; also that Miss Betsy's task was
no sinecure, and she therefore thought it best to change the subject.

"There!" said she, as Miss Betsy gave the thin rope of her back hair a
fierce twist, and jammed her high comb inward and outward that the teeth
might catch,--"there! now you'll do! Come into the kitchen and tell me
the news, while I set my loaves to rise."

"Loaves to rise," echoed Miss Betsy, seating herself on a tall,
rush-bottomed chair near the window. She had an incorrigible habit of
repeating the last three words of the person with whom she spoke,--a
habit which was sometimes mimicked good-humoredly, even by her best
friends. Many persons, however, were flattered by it, as it seemed to
denote an earnest attention to what they were saying. Between the two,
there it was and there it would be, to the day of her death,--Miss
Lavender's "keel-mark, [Footnote: Keel, a local term for red chalk.] as
the farmers said of their sheep.

"Well," she resumed, after taking breath, "no news is good news, these
days. Down Whitely Creek way, towards Strickersville, there's fever,
they say; Richard Rudd talks o' buildin' higher up the hill,--you know
it's low and swampy about the old house,--but Sarah, she says it'll be a
mortal long ways to the spring-house, and so betwixt and between them I
dunno how it'll turn out. Dear me! I was up at Aunt Buffin'ton's t'