"But I will, if only to plague you," she said.
"Don't feel obliged to," he replied, starting down the walk. "It really won't annoy me enough to make it worth your trouble."
Patty darted into the house, and up to her chamber, like a swallow. Unconsciously she caught up Bathalina's strain.
"'Sudden and awful, from the height of pleasure,
By pain and sickness thrown upon a down-bed,'"
she carolled; and for once the hymn put on a garb of mocking gayety.
"Patience Sanford!" solemnly ejaculated the pious maid-servant, putting her head in at the chamber-door. "It's tempting Providence to sing that hymn that way. No good'll come of it, you may depend."
"Nonsense, Bath! I could dance to the hymns of the cherubim!"
And into the garden she flew to pin a bunch of clove-pinks at her belt.
"Do you know how solemn you looked," Putnam asked as they drove along the smooth road, between unfenced fields green with the starting aftermath, "when I found you on the piazza? Were you thinking of your sins?"