"You can call me what you please, Aunt Hepsy," she said. "But don't you go giving my dead mother no names. I wasn't her fault anyway."
"Back again, you saucy maggot! No—poor soul, you wasn't her fault; you was her eternal misfortune—same as you be mine. But don't you think I'm an angel, because I ban't—nothing but an unfortunate, down-trodden old woman. But I won't be rode roughshod over by a black imp like you, and so I tell 'e. You go once again, and God's my judge, you shan't come back. I won't let your shadow over my doorstep no more. You shan't bring my grey hairs with sorrow to the grave, you scourge of a girl!"
She rated, like some harsh-voiced machine that needs oil, and Susan, perfectly accustomed to these explosions, stood silent before her, waiting for a familiar hitch or gasp, that she knew would presently reduce her aunt to temporary silence.
At last it came, just as Philip Weekes appeared from a visit to his poultry.
"This be very serious, Susan," he said. "I really don't know what to think of it. 'Tis a senseless, improper thing to be off like this whenever you be niffed with your aunt—such a woman as she is, too. And—and—how is it you'm back so soon?"
"Because——" began Susan; but Mrs. Weekes was now able to proceed.
"Because your Aunt Tabitha didn't just happen to want 'e, no doubt. As feeble as a mole she is, to have stood it so often. She did ought to have sent you packing with a flea in your ear first time ever you dared to run away, instead of keeping you to help washing. Just like you all—you Prouts and Weekeses—soft stuff—soft stuff—and you'll all go down into the pit together. Lord, He knows where you'd be yourself, Philip Weekes, if it wasn't for me. But even I can't turn putty into starch. Putty you are, and putty you will be till the Day of Doom."
"I comed back, Uncle Philip, because I got hold of a very interesting piece o' news, and I knowed Aunt Hepsy would be very much obliged to me for telling of it," said Susan swiftly.
"Interesting news, indeed! Then you've been listening to other people, I suppose? That's your way. If you'd listen to me, you might get salvation; but never, never—what I say don't matter more than the wind in the hedge. I'm only an old fool that haven't seen the world, and haven't got no wisdom or learning. Of course Aunt Tabitha knows so much better, and of course Uncle John's a good second to Solomon! Well, well, there's times when a broken spirit hungers for the grave and peace. And so I feel more and more when I look at you, Susan."
"All the same, I comed home for nought but to tell you. 'Tis about Sarah Jane. She'm not going to have cousin Jar. She's took another man. I've seen him."