"She ain't to home," answered Isabel. "My niece ain't to home."
The parson had bent forward, and was eyeing her curiously, yet with benevolence. He knew all the residents within a large radius, and he expected, at another word from the shadowy masker, to recognize her also. "Will she be away long?" he hesitated.
"I guess she will," answered Isabel promptly. "She ain't to be relied on. I never found her so." Her spirits had risen. She knew how exactly she was imitating aunt Luceba's mode of speech. The tones were dramatically exact, albeit of a more resonant quality. "Auntie's voice is like suet," she thought. "Mine is vinegar. But I've got it!" A merry devil assailed her, the child of dramatic triumph. She spoke with decision: "Won't you come in?"
The parson crossed the sill, and waited courteously for her to precede him; but Isabel thought, in time, of her back breadth, and stood aside.
"You go fust," said she, "an' I'll shet the door."
He made his way into the ill-lighted sitting-room, and began to unpin his shawl.
"I ain't had my bunnit off sence I come," announced Isabel, entering with some bustle, and taking her stand, until he should be seated, within the darkest corner of the hearth. "I've had to turn to an' clear up, or I shouldn't ha' found a spot as big as a hin's egg to sleep in to-night. Maybe you don't know it, but my niece Isabel's got no more faculty about a house 'n I have for preachin'—not a mite."
The parson had seated himself by the stove, and was laboriously removing his arctics. Isabel's eyes danced behind her spectacles as she thought how large and ministerial they were. She could not see them, for the spectacles dazzled her, but she remembered exactly how they looked. Everything about him filled her with glee, now that she was safe, though within his reach. "'Now, infidel,'" she said noiselessly, "'I have thee on the hip!'"
The parson had settled himself in his accustomed attitude when making parochial calls. He put the tips of his fingers together, and opened conversation in his tone of mild good-will:—
"I don't seem to be able to place you. A relative of Miss Isabel's, did you say?"