“You see, if I did not know, I shouldn’t get so much bothered with folks asking me questions: so I thought I’d let it be.”
That Osbert’s “folks” might more properly be read “Anania,” Isel knew full well.
“Saints love us!—but I would have got to know who was my sister-in-law, if I’d been in your place.”
“To tell the truth, Aunt, I don’t care, so long as she is a decent woman who will make Stephen comfortable; and I think he’s old enough to look out for himself.”
“But don’t you know even what he was going to do?—seek another watch, or go into service, or take to trade, or what?”
“I don’t know a word outside what I have just told you. Oh, he’ll be all right! Stephen has nine lives, like a cat. He always falls on his feet.”
“But it don’t seem natural like!”
Osbert laughed. “I suppose it is natural to a woman to have more curiosity than a man. I never had much of that stuff. Anania’s got enough for both.”
“Well, I’m free to confess she has. Osbert, how do you manage her? I can’t.”
“Let her alone as long as I can, and take the mop to her when I can’t,” was the answer.