"Well, if anybody's goin' to be mad it ought to be me," said the cap'n, lifting his brows with that droll look he wore when he intended to indicate that he was fooling. "I guess I've got to wash my own dishes an' bake my own johnny-cake for a spell. Mandy's goin' to leave."
"Mandy goin' to leave! Well, you will be put to 't. What's she leavin' for?"
"Goin' to be married."
"For mercy sakes! Who's Mandy Hill goin' to marry?"
"Goin' to marry the peddler."
"The one from the Pines?"
Cap'n Hanscom nodded.
"He's been round consid'able this fall, but I never so much as thought he'd got anything but carpet-rags in his head. Well, seems he had. Now 't I know it, I realize Mandy's been stockin' up with tin for quite a spell. Seems to me I never see a woman that needed so much tinware, nor took so long to pick it out. I never got it through my noddle she an' the peddler was makin' on 't up between 'em."
"Well, suz," said Mariana. "I never so much as thought Mandy Hill'd ever marry."
"I never did, either," said the cap'n. "But come to that, it'd be queer 'f she didn't sooner or later. Mandy Hill's just the sort of a woman nine men out o' ten'd be possessed to marry. Wonder to me she ain't done it afore."