"Oh, you big silly!" cried Mandy, dropping the paper, for she didn't think it necessary to read any further.
"Is it all right?" cried Hiram, "it cost a quarter to git it drawn up. Then I swore to it before old Squire Rundlett over to Montrose, and it ought ter hold water. You'd better keep it, Mandy, then I can't fling it up at yer that I never axed yer to marry me."
"Who told you that?" asked the girl indignantly.
"Ma Hawkins. Well, she didn't exactly say it to me, but she spoke it out so loud to Betsy Green that I heered it clear out in the wood-shed and I'll tell yer what, Mandy, it kinder made me mad."
"Well, it's all right now," said Mandy soothingly.
"Is it?" asked Hiram, his face beaming with delight.
The next instant there was a succession of peculiar sounds heard in the room. As Swiss came back from the kitchen door but one chair was needed for the happy couple, and an onlooker would have thought that chair was occupied by one person with a very large head, having light curly hair on one side and straight dark hair on the other, no face being visible.
It was upon this picture that Mrs. Crowley looked as she opened the door leading into the kitchen and started to come into the room with a large pan full of cream.
Astonished, she stepped backward, forgetting the two steps that she had just ascended. Flat upon her back she fell, the pan of cream drenching her from head to foot.
"It's drownded I am! It's drownded I am!" she cried at the top of her voice.