Mrs. Bruce made room for him beside her, and the stage started. She was pale, and had made no effort to get the driver’s seat, where Miss Maynard and Robert had climbed at Mrs. Nixon’s suggestion.
“Let some one sit up there who has had a wink of sleep,” Mrs. Bruce had said sepulchrally. “If I owned that inn, Irving Bruce, I would sell it for twenty-five cents.”
“Well well!” responded her son, so fortified by coffee and bread and butter, eaten where he was not obliged to look upon a captive maid, that he could smile. “I thought the inn was enchanting you into remaining all summer.”
“H’m!” ejaculated Mrs. Bruce. “It may be very fascinating by day; but by night it is Hades, nothing less—not a whit less.” And the speaker shook her head as one who should say that hours of argument would not persuade her to abate a jot of her denunciation. “Did you sleep any, Irving?”
“Why—not much. I think it must have been the coffee. You overdid it too, eh?”
“Coffee!” Mrs. Bruce glared palely at the suggestion. “There were two men in the room next to us. Logs between—nothing but logs. Irving, wouldn’t anybody with any sense or forethought have cemented between those logs?”
“So picturesque,” murmured Irving.
“Don’t let me ever hear the word again,” gasped Mrs. Bruce. “They said it all night. Didn’t they, Betsy?”
“You said so, ma’am.”