Then she eyed me grimly, crouching in her chair with the appearance of an evil bird of prey, and seemed to wait for me to speak.
“What is the latest plot?” I asked gravely, as I fancied that my light manner grated on my strange guest.
“I don't know,” she said slowly.
“But you know something,” I argued.
“Maybe you know what I know better than I knows it myself,” growled Mother Borton with a significant glance.
I resigned myself to await her humor.
“Not at all,” said I carelessly. “I only know that you've come to tell me something, and that you'll tell it in your own good time.”
“It's fine to see that you've learned not to drive a woman,” she returned with grim irony. “It's something to know at your age.”
I smiled sympathetically upon her, and she continued:
“I might as well tell ye the whole of it, though I reckon my throat's jist as like to be slit over it as not.”