“Do you suppose he really did it?” the aunt continued, after a minute of appalled consideration.
“It’s about the only thing he ain’t never done,” the tried and true servant answered, her tone more gratingly penetrative than ever.
Aunt Mary eyed her sharply, not to say furiously.
“I wish you’d give a plain answer when I ask you a plain question, Lucinda,” she said coldly. “If you’d ever got a breach-of-promise suit in the early mail you’d know how I feel. Perhaps—probably.”
“I ain’t a doubt but what he done it,” Lucinda screamed out; “an’ if I was her an’ he wouldn’t marry me after sayin’ he would I’d sue him for a hundred thousand, an’ think I let him off cheap then.”
Aunt Mary deigned to smile faintly over the subtlety of this speech; but the next minute she was frowning blacker than ever.
“A girl from Kalamazoo, too, just up in Chicago for a week—just up in Chicago long enough to come down on me for fifteen thousand dollars.”
“Maybe she’ll take five thousand instead,” Lucinda remarked.
“Maybe!” ejaculated her mistress, in fine scorn. “Maybe! Well, if you don’t talk as if money was sweet peas an’ would dry up if it wasn’t picked!”
Lucinda screwed up her face.