"You talk to Kittie, Hanna. My girls won't none of 'em listen to me no more. I tell 'em they're fightin' over my body before it's dead for this house and the one on Ludlow Street. It's precious little for 'em to be fightin' for before I'm dead, but if not for it, I'd never be gettin' these visits from a one of 'em."
"Ma!"
"I keep tellin' her, Kittie, to stay home. New York ain't no place for a divorced woman to set herself right with the Lord."
"Ma, if you don't quit raving and clear on up to bed, I'll pack myself out to-night yet, and then you'll have a few things to set right with the Lord. Go on up, now."
"I—"
"Go on—you hear?"
Mrs. Scogin went then, tiredly and quite bent forward, toward a flight of stairs that rose directly from the parlor, opened a door leading up into them, the frozen breath of unheated regions coming down.
"Quick—close that door, ma!"
"Come to see a body, Hanna, when she ain't here. She won't stay at home, like a God-fearin' woman ought to."
"Light the gas-heater up there, if you expect me to come to bed. I'm used to steam-heated flats, not barns."