"Didn't you know I had come here to live with you?"
"Bless us and save us!" ejaculated Aunt Alvirah. "How did that happen?"
"Didn't my uncle tell you?" cried Ruth, much more surprised than the old lady.
"Who's your uncle, child?"
"Why, Mr. Potter—Uncle Jabez."
So astonished did the old lady appear to be that she started from her chair and her ejaculation was changed to a moan of pain as she murmured her old formula: "Oh, my back and oh, my bones!"
"Jabez ain't said a word to me about it. Why should he take anybody to help me? Is he struck with the fear o' his latter end?"
She said this in no cross-grained way, but because she was so amazed. She likewise stared harder and harder at her visitor.
"You ain't come from the poor farm, child?" she asked, finally.
The flush upon Ruth's cheek and the expression which came into her face told Aunt Alviry that she was wrong there.