I followed her eagerly, thinking of the peaches, longing for them with inexpressible longing. We went through the cabin—on and on—back of some curtains that draped it at one end. Here she paused, set her basket on a marble table, and proceeded to open it.
I did not wish to show the craving eagerness which possessed me, and delicately turned my eyes away. Then she spoke in a deep mellow voice, as though she had fed on peaches from the cradle up.
"Look a-here," says she. "Isn't this something nice?"
I looked! the basket was open. She held a tumbler in one hand and a bottle in the other, from which a stream of brandy gurgled. That rotund impostor came toward me, beaming.
"There," says she, "take right hold. It's first-rate Cognac."
All the Vermont blood in my veins riled suddenly. I drew myself up to the full queenly height that so many people have thought imposing. Disappointment sharpened virtue's indignation.
"Madam," says I, "you have practised a hospitable fraud—in Christian charity I will call it hospitable—on a New England lady, who looks upon temperance as a cardinal virtue. Put up your bottle. Maple sap and sweet cider from straws are the strongest drinks I ever indulge in."
"Maple sap," says she, with a rumbling, mellow laugh, which ended in a cough as the brandy went down her throat. "Sweet cider, through straws! Well, every one to her taste."
Here she filled the glass again and held it out, smiling like a harvest moon.
"What, you won't take the least nip, just to save it, you know?"