"Eats so much it makes her thin to carry it around!" growled Moses, interrupting. "As for Montgomery, that little shaver's never had—"
What he would have added is not known.
Out upon the kitchen stairs sounded the rush of sodden feet, which seemed to stumble from sheer weariness even in their maddened haste; and the next instant there burst into the room what looked like a wretched caricature of poor Susanna. Bonnetless and spectacle-less, her gray hair streaming in snake-like strands, her garments dripping pools, her fine black Sunday shawl trailing behind her like a splash of flowing ink, she dropped upon the floor gasping and sobbing, and, apparently, at her wits' end.
A second's hesitation at touching so draggled and dripping a creature held Eunice aloof; and then she was down beside her friend, wiping the rain-wet face and begging to be told what had befallen.
"Surely, something worse than a storm has brought you to this pass, my poor dear. You look frightened—you tremble—You—Oh, Susanna! Where is Katharine? Has harm happened her?"
"Her? 'Tain't her! It's me. It's come at last, an' I always—knew—it would. Oh, say! Am I alive or—or—dead?"
Then as the absurdity of her own question flashed upon her, she began to laugh hysterically, and soon to sob with equal fervor. She was wholly overdone and unnerved, and, realizing that nothing could be learned till she was calmer, her mistress put no further inquiries, but led her away down the stairs, still dripping moisture,—a fact that no stress of emotion could hide from the critical sight of two such housekeepers.
"Them stairs! An' I washin' 'em all up clean just afore sundown! Lucky I hadn't put down the carpet yet, though I'd laid out—Oh, my suz!"
This was the first coherent sentence, if such it can be called, which escaped the terrified woman, while she was being undressed and freshly clothed in the warm things Eunice had provided.
"Yes, dear heart. But never mind the stairs. Did you find Katharine?"