But to return to our muttons—the palpitating girlhood of Green Hill.
"Silly geese!" I commented unkindly.
Sarah from the doorway looked as cryptic as is consistent with the features Nature had given her.
"Oh, I don't know!" she answered with spirit, and an unconscious effect of argot, "In Green Hill, Miss Mavis, men is scarce!"
Here was truth! Mentally I echoed, "They is!" and Sarah, reading ratification in my silence, achieved a disappearance of my tray, and returned to the attack.
"Sammy says—he was down to the station last night when the ten-six come in—seems like," she digressed, "he's always hanging around the station since Rosie Allan's been telegraph operator there—"
"Rosie is a very pretty girl, Sarah," I chided gently.
"Pretty is as pretty does!" said Sarah, in irrefutable self-defense. "Limb, I call her—bold as brass! But then," she added in her most pleasant tone, "Sammy was never raised to know better." And she looked at me with that unique light in her eyes which never fails them of the mention of any Simpson delinquency, however slight.
"Sammy says," she continued, bound to pursue the subject to the bitter end, "that the new doctor is a likely-looking young fellow, and seems well off."
At this juncture, I opened my paper with an air of finality.