“Please, Aunt Tabitha, if you have half a twink to spare—I know not what it is, but I suppose you do—won’t you go and find out Aunt Alice?”
This practical suggestion from Christie was quietly ignored.
“’Tis right like a man as ever I did see! Catch a woman turning back in that fashion afore she’d half done her work!”
“But, Aunt Tabitha,” urged Christie, for her father sat in silence, and she felt herself bound to defend him, “have you forgotten what the porter said to Father? If they—”
“Pack o’ nonsense!” snorted Aunt Tabitha. “He would fain keep him from continual coming, and he spake out the first thing that came in his head, that’s all. None but a babe like thee should take any note of such rubbish. Can’t you speak up, Roger Hall? or did you drop your tongue where you left your wits?”
“Methinks you have a sufficiency for us both, Tabitha,” said Roger quietly, leaving it uncertain whether he alluded to the tongue or the wits.
“Mean you to go again to-morrow?”
“That cannot I yet say. I lack time to think—and to pray likewise.”
“Lack time to think! Gramercy me! How long doth a man want to gather up his wits together? I should have thought of fifty things whilst I rode back from Canterbury.”
“So I did, Tabitha; but I wis not yet which was the right.”