"O Betty, Betty! Never too old for mischief!"
But none heard the words save "Betty," who smiled as she did so. The others were helping Mr. Chester into the carriage and settling him comfortably there, with an ostentatious kindness on the part of Mr. Montaigne which the ex-postman inwardly resented. Then the coachman started his team forward, and the justice returned to his smithy, cheerily calling out:
"Well, lad, we've come out of that business with flying colors! It was the presence of Mrs. Calvert which did the most for us, though the man has more sense than appeared, yesterday, else he wouldn't—Why, Jim? James? Jimmy?"
There was no response. None but the office cat answered this summons. The defendant in this remarkable suit had vanished.
CHAPTER VIII
A WALK AND ITS ENDING
It was with great surprise that the dwellers in the houses along the way saw the contestants in a case of law returning from the trial in the most harmonious manner.
First came the Montaigne equipage, with Mrs. Montaigne and Helena upon the back seat, the latter sitting stiffly erect and haughty, the former chatting most pleasantly with the cripple facing her. Behind the carriage walked Mrs. Calvert and Mrs. Chester, both in the gayest of spirits and talking volubly of household matters; as mother Martha afterward described it:
"Might have been plain Mrs. Bruce, or Jane Jones herself, Mrs. Cecil might, she was that simple and plain spoke. She's going to have her currant jell' made right away, even whilst the currants are half green. Says she's read it was better so, and though she's afraid her old cook'll 'act up' about it she's bound to try. She said that when a body gets too old to learn—even about cookin'—it's time to give up living. Land! She's not one that will give it up till she has to! I never saw anybody as full of plans as that old lady is. You'd think she was just starting out in life instead of being so nigh the end of it, and I guess she thought I was s'prised to hear her tell. Because she caught me looking at her once, right sharp, and she laughed and said: 'I'm one of the people who can't settle down, I'm so many years young!' Why, she might have been Dolly, even, she was so full of fun over the way that lawsuit ended. I know 'twas that that pleased her so, though she never mentioned it from the time we left the shop till we got back to Skyrie. Well, green currants may make the jell' solider, but I shall wait till just before the Fourth, as I always have, to make mine: and I'm thankful for the few old currant bushes that still grow along that east wall. Almost any other kind of shrub'd have died long ago, neglected as things have been, but you can't kill a currant bush. More'n that, when I get my jell' done I'm going to send Mrs. Calvert a tumbler and compare notes. I reckon mine'll come out head, for I never was one to take up with everything one reads in the papers, nor cook books, either."