To the kitchen they all trooped. Mrs. Sanford was there before them, alternately scolding the returned prodigal, and pitying herself.
"The trials I've been through since you left," she said, "are beyond mortal belief. How you could have the heart to leave me in the lurch so, Bathalina, is more than I know. 'Light come, light go,' as the old saying is; and I doubt you've proved it by this time with that husband of yours."
"But it is too bad you've left him, Bathalina!" Flossy put in. "You've no idea how becoming a husband was to you. You ought never to go without one."
"Where is your other half?" Will asked. "You and he are only one between you, you know."
"In courtin'," answered Bathalina sententiously, rising to the height of the occasion,—"in courtin' there may be only one, but in marriage there's two."
"Hurrah!" he laughed. "You've learned something. That's worthy of Emerson. Allow me to add," he continued with mock solemnity, "that it is a truth as old as the universe, that one plus one is two."
"I'm glad you've come," said Flossy; "for you do make such good things to eat. The last girl we had, made bread so sour that I couldn't eat it without feeling as if angle-worms were crawling down my back. So you don't like being married, Bathalina?"
"It was all for my sinful pride," the servant answered lugubriously, "that I was left to be Peter Mixon's wife. And, if ever you come to be that, you'll repent with your harps hanged on the willows, as the tune says."
"For my part," said Patty, "I think Mr. Mixon will be a widower, if you don't get off those wet clothes soon."
"I doubt he will," assented Mrs. Sanford. "Why she came over in them is more than I can see."