"Good-day," said Theodore, sitting down on a chair with no back, while Isa went into an adjoining bedroom to add the postscript to her letter. "How do you find yourself this weather, Granny?"
"Mrs. Lee, if you please," snarled the old woman, glaring at him in a malignant way and removing the pipe from her almost toothless gums.
"Mrs. Lee then be it; Mrs. Brenda Lee, if you like," said Dane, who had his reasons for keeping her in a good temper. "How are you?"
"How should I be in this damned weather? I'm all aches and pains and they dratted rheumatics."
"You shouldn't attend so many Sabbaths," chuckled Theodore, loosening his fur coat. "Riding a broom-stick with no clothes on is dangerous at your age."
"Leave my age alone, drat ye!" growled the amiable old lady, beginning to cut a fresh fill of tobacco with a clasp-knife. "As to Sabbaths, I don't believe in 'em, or I'd ha' gone long ago. There ain't any now, and I don't believe as there ever was. I don't go to Them, but They come to me."
Theodore cast a bold look round the miserable room. "Are They here now?"
Granny Lee chuckled in her turn. "Mine don't need to show when you're here, Mr. Dane. You've brought your lot along with you, and the biggest of them is looking over your shoulder at this blessed moment."
The big man turned his head, but, of course, not being gifted with mediumistic powers, could see nothing. "I wish I could have a look at him," he said regretfully. "What is he?"
"Just your thought grown big."