“I do hope you won't git mad at what I'm goin' to say, Mister Hewlitt,” she said, “'cause I ain't goin' to say it for no such thing; but I couldn't help hearin' what you was sayin' to Doc while I was reddin' off the table. I wisht you wouldn't let him git to talkin' about new-fangled religions and sich. It ain't for his good nor mine.”
Eliph' nodded good-naturedly.
“Why, ma'm,” he exclaimed, “we were only discussing faith cures, and neither of us believes in them—wholly, that is. Of course everyone who has read the chapter on “India, It's Religions and Its History,' in Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art, must to some extend admit the power of mind over matter. But if you'd rather not have me, I'll not discuss it again. There are one thousand and one other interesting subjects treated of in this great book, any one of which will please the studious mind.”
“I'd rather you wouldn't, if you don't mind,” said the doctor's wife simply.
Eliph' Hewlitt pushed back his chair, and arose as he saw the lines of worry leave the face of his hostess. He turned to the side table and looked among the books that lay on it.
Mrs. Weaver sprang to her feet.
“Land's sakes!” she cried. “I know what you're lookin' for. You're lookin' for that book of yourn, ain't you? It's right there behind them wax flowers on that what-not. I seen it layin' around and I jist shoved it back there so Doc wouldn't git at it.”
“Well, you sit down, ma'm,” said the book agent. “I can get it. But there was no need to be so particular. The doctor knows how to hand a book as well as the next man.”
The doctor's wife drew her darning basket from the side table and turned its contents into her lap.
“'Twasn't that,” she said; “I'd never have thought of that, I guess. I hit it because I didn't know if 'twas a proper book for Doc. It's got a kind of a queer name.”