“Do you mean you’re goin’ to know?”
“Yes, and for that reason Mr. Simpson mus’n’t know that we’ve learned anythin’.”
Mrs. Ross went outside to call Tommy to supper. When she returned she shook her head once or twice and muttered to herself. “The teacher’s gone to Bridgetown to-night,” she said after a time.
Mary Ann sat down to the table.
“Mary Ann,” asked the woman gently, “ain’t you carin’ for him none?”
“No, ma.”
“And if he’d ask you, you’d say——?”
“No, ma.”
The widow poured out the tea and dished up the potatoes. She slopped the tea and spilled the potatoes and then she sat down and, stretching over her arm, patted her daughter’s brown hand.
“You’re the right kind of girl for a widder to own,” she said, her eyes humid with feeling; “just the right sort.” She sat erect and slapped the table so hard that the dishes clattered. “But that Bill Paisley is a ruffin—a no-count ruffin, Mary Ann.”