Mrs. Pogram sniffed. “The grass is kind o’ damp, I guess,” she objected.
“Perhaps it is,” said Betsy. “Come in, then. Before another summer we’re goin’ to have a real nice veranda all across the front.”
“How you talk!” returned the caller, following her inside and accepting a cushioned rocker. “It sounds good to hear of anybody prosperin’. I haven’t scarcely got my breath since I heard o’ your marriage. And they say you wasn’t married in Fairport. They say you took the boat and went off and had a preacher from Mere Point row out with a witness and get aboard and marry you, ’cause Hiram wanted the knot tied on the sea; said he was goin’ to have a sailor’s knot and make a sure thing of it. And then I heard you all danced a hornpipe!”
Betsy laughed into the curious face with its down-drawn lips. “What a good time somebody had spinnin’ that yarn,” she said. “Now tell me about yourself, Mrs. Pogram.”
“It looks awful comfortable here,” declared the visitor wistfully. “I didn’t know as you and Hiram was goin’ to get married.”
“Well, you see we did. I’m your neighbor now, for good.”
“’Tis good, Betsy. ’Tis so.”
The visitor rocked as she inspected. Her gloomy garb and countenance in the cheerful room gave an effect as of a portly raven in a solarium.