She started directly for Main Street, and turned up that thoroughfare at a pace which attracted considerable attention. After rapidly walking two blocks she swept across the street, and after having waited for Bristol to come up with her, plunged into the little restaurant under Washington Hall, with my operative close at her heels.
The sudden entrance of the couple caused a great commotion in the quaint little eating-room, and the drowsy customers smiled when they saw the unaccustomed form of the woman whom the Misses Grim—Tabitha, Amanda and Hannah—had taken no trouble to prevent being known as her deadly enemy.
Tabitha, the most ancient, at once bristled up and took a position behind her neat counter, her wrinkled head trembling with so much excitement that her sparse curls created a kind of quivering nimbus about it.
"Well, ma'am and what can I do for you?" asked Tabitha with a flaunt of her head and a sarcastic tinge in her voice.
Mrs. Winslow got to the counter in two or three quick jumps or starts, and asked, husky with rage, "I—I just want to know which one of you old straws sent that box to me?"
"Box to you!" jerked out Amanda, the next less ancient of the Misses Grim, who had just entered and at once stopped stock still to catch Mrs. Winslow's remark; "box to you? Tush!—box to nobody!" and she too sidled in behind the counter to reinforce, and tremble with, her very old sister.
"Oh, you can't play your innocence on me!" retorted Mrs. Winslow very violently. "You wear very white collars, and very black caps and very straight dresses, and look very saintly, but you're just three old witches; that's what you are!"
"Pooh, pooh!" snorted Tabitha and Amanda hysterically.
"Pooh, pooh! if you like; but if I find out which one of you sent that box, I'll—I'll shake every bone in her old body into a match!" shouted Mrs. Winslow, dancing up and down against the counter and working her fingers savagely.
"Match?" responded Hannah, the least ancient and most fiery of the three virgins, and who entered at this critical moment; "match indeed! you're a match for anything villainous!" and then she too trotted behind the counter to throw the weight of her presence into the conflict.