She fell against the kitchen door and it opened with her weight.
"Hullo, Nell!" She blinked foolishly in the glare of the light.
The woman looked at her in silence.
"Hullo, I say!" The cloak slipped from her bare shoulders and she lunged toward a chair.
The flush on her face had faded and her color was ghastly, a grayish white, the pallor of an anæmic; the many short hairs on her forehead and temples hung straight in her eyes, the filmy flounce of her gown was torn and trailing, while a scraggly bunch of Russian thistle clung to the chiffon ruffles of her silk drop-skirt.
The woman stood in the centre of the kitchen with her arms akimbo—a huge raw-boned creature of a rough, frontier type.
She spoke at last.
"Well, you're a sight!"
"Been celebratin', Nell," she chuckled gleefully, "been celebratin' my S'preme Moment."
"You'd better git in there and fix that feller's arm or we'll be celebratin' a funeral," the woman answered curtly. "He's bleedin' like a stuck pig."