Mrs. Rivers looked up from her work at this abrupt onset of her husband, but without changing her own expression of slightly fatigued self-righteousness. Accustomed to these elemental eruptions, she laid her hands from force of habit upon the lifting tablecloth, and then rose submissively to brush together the scattered embers and ashes from the large hearthstone, as she had often done before.
“You're in early, Seth,” she said.
“Yes. I stopped at the Cross Roads Post Office. Lucky I did, or you'd hev had kempany on your hands afore you knowed it—this very night! I found this letter from Dr. Duchesne,” and he produced a letter from his pocket.
Mrs. Rivers looked up with an expression of worldly interest. Dr. Duchesne had brought her two children into the world with some difficulty, and had skillfully attended her through a long illness consequent upon the inefficient maternity of soulful but fragile American women of her type. The doctor had more than a mere local reputation as a surgeon, and Mrs. Rivers looked up to him as her sole connecting link with a world of thought beyond Windy Hill.
“He's comin' up yer to-night, bringin' a friend of his—a patient that he wants us to board and keep for three weeks until he's well agin,” continued Mr. Rivers. “Ye know how the doctor used to rave about the pure air on our hill.”
Mrs. Rivers shivered slightly, and drew her shawl over her shoulders, but nodded a patient assent.
“Well, he says it's just what that patient oughter have to cure him. He's had lung fever and other things, and this yer air and gin'ral quiet is bound to set him up. We're to board and keep him without any fuss or feathers, and the doctor sez he'll pay liberal for it. This yer's what he sez,” concluded Mr. Rivers, reading from the letter: “'He is now fully convalescent, though weak, and really requires no other medicine than the—ozone'—yes, that's what the doctor calls it—'of Windy Hill, and in fact as little attendance as possible. I will not let him keep even his negro servant with him. He'll give you no trouble, if he can be prevailed upon to stay the whole time of his cure.'”
“There's our spare room—it hasn't been used since Parson Greenwood was here,” said Mrs. Rivers reflectively. “Melinda could put it to rights in an hour. At what time will he come?”
“He'd come about nine. They drive over from Hightown depot. But,” he added grimly, “here ye are orderin' rooms to be done up and ye don't know who for.”
“You said a friend of Dr. Duchesne,” returned Mrs. Rivers simply.