"And is it only 'city people' who do wrong and need arresting? Because, you see, I'm a 'city' person myself, and resent that idea!" laughed the girl, mischievously. Yet the next instant she regretfully observed that she had again annoyed her dignified hostess.
Indeed, the annoyance was so great that Miss Maitland's brow clouded, and her eye swept the stylishly garbed small figure at the window with renewed misgiving. She knew little of the latter-day young folks, with their study-sharpened intelligence, their habit of repartee, and their self-assumed equality with their elders. Such few of the Marsden lads and lasses as visited her belonged to the old-fashioned families, and were trained to strict habits of obedience, and "to speak when they were spoken to." They were supposed to have no opinions on any subject save such as were formed for them by their parents and guardians; and—well, they were altogether different from this alert, dark-eyed maiden, who had been in the house less than an hour, yet had already upset it to a degree!
Kate's gaze had again returned to the scene without, and she had forgotten her momentary regret, as she observed, from time to time:
"She's the funniest thing I ever saw, and he's funnier than she! He doesn't want to lift the trunk. No. She doesn't want him to. Yes, she does. She's getting mad. He won't do it her way. She won't do it his. They're both coming in and leaving it on the sidewalk. He's saying something to her and now she's faced about again. Maybe he said 'tramp,' because she's looking all up and down the street as if she were scared, and he's laughing. I guess he's laughing—he shakes as if he were, yet his face is as sober as ever. Now they're off! Here they come. But do look, Aunt Eunice, oh, do look! He's just barely lifting his end off the ground, and she's raised hers real high. She's doing the most of the work, I believe, yet he's crouching down as if he were half-crushed by the weight. The idea! He sha'n't do that! I won't let any woman be treated that way!"
Out she sped, leaving all doors open and thus obliging Miss Maitland to close them after her or let the rooms be cooled by the inrush of wind. But her swift comprehension of the habits of the two household helpers, and her vivid description of their present movements, had so amused the lady that she also took up a point of observation, and was just in time to see Katharine indignantly push Moses' hand from the trunk-handle and seize it herself. It was evidently a heavier load than she had expected, for, at first, her end went down even lower than when Moses held it, yet she rallied instantly, and with all her might lifted it to a level with Susanna's, who was as instantly won by this action, and exclaimed, exultantly:
"There, Moses Jones! What did I tell you? Ain't no heft in it, not a mite. Nobody but a man—a man—would make such a how-de-do over a trunk. Just a trunk!"
The infinite scorn of words and manner provoked nothing further from her "shif'less" housemate than another silent chuckle, and a keen glance at Katharine from beneath his bushy eyebrows.
Yet he did look a trifle ashamed when his mistress herself opened the hall door again to admit the trunk-bearers, and without more ado hurried back to the sidewalk and brought in the rest of the luggage. It was noticeable that he no longer stooped or affected fatigue; and that as soon as Susanna let go the trunk at the foot of the stairs he immediately shouldered it, like the lightest of parcels, and carried it swiftly above. Then, pausing at the top of the flight, he asked, in a brisk tone:
"Which room, Eunice?"
"The sitting-room chamber, Moses."