"Law! I'd go anywheres to git out o' here," said Mrs. Blair, ruthlessly. "I dunno when I've set behind a horse, either. I guess the last time was the day I rid up here for good, an' then I didn't feel much like lookin' at outdoor. Well, I guess you be a new director, or you never'd ha' thought on't!"
"How do you feel about it, Miss Dyer?" asked the visitor. "Will you go,—perhaps on, Wednesday?"
The other householder moved uneasily. Her hands twitched at their knitting; a flush came over her cheeks, and she cast a childishly appealing glance at her neighbor across the chalkline. Her eyes were filling fast with tears. "Save me!" her look seemed to entreat "Let me not lose this happy fortune!" Mrs. Blair interpreted the message, and rose to the occasion with the vigor of the intellectually great.
"Mis' Mitchell," she said, clearly, "I may be queer in my notions, but it makes me as nervous as a witch to have anybody hollerin' out o' my winders. I don't care whether it's company nor whether it's my own folks. If you want to speak to Miss Dyer, you come along here after me,—don't you hit the partition now!—right out o' my door an' into her'n. Here, I'll knock! Miss Dyer, be you to home?"
The little old lady came forward, fluttering and radiant in the excess of her relief.
"Yes, I guess I be," she said, "an' all alone, too! I see you go by the winder, an' I was in' hopes you'd come in!"
Then the situation dawned upon Mrs. Mitchell with an effect vastly surprising to the two old pensioners. She turned from one to the other, including them both in a look of warm loving-kindness. It was truly an illumination. Hitherto, they had thought chiefly of her winter cloak and nodding ostrich plume; now, at last, they saw her face, and read some part of its message.
"You poor souls!" she cried. "Do you care so much as that? 'O you poor souls!"
Miss Dyer fingered her apron and looked at the floor, but her companion turned brusquely away, even though she trod upon the partition in her haste.
"Law! it's nothin' to make such a handle of" she said. "Folks don't want to be under each other's noses all the time. I dunno's anybody could stan' it, unless 'twas an emmet. They seem to git along swarmin' round together."