"No!" said Miss Shott, seating herself upon the sofa. "This suits me very well, and Willy Croup can come to me here as well as anywhere else!"
Presently Willy arrived, wishing very much that she also had been out.
"Do come over to the other parlor, Miss Shott!" said she. "There's no furnace heat here because Mrs. Cliff didn't want the old house altered, and we use this room so little that we haven't made a fire."
"I thought you had the chimney put in order!" said Miss Shott, without moving from her seat. "Doesn't it work right?"
Willy assured her visitor that the chimney was in good condition so far as she knew, and repeated her invitation to come into a warmer room, but to this Miss Shott paid no attention.
"It's an old saying," said she, "that a bad chimney saves fuel!—I understand that you've all been to New York shopping?"
"Yes," said Willy, laughing. "It was a kind of shopping, but that's not exactly what I'd call it!" And perceiving that Miss Shott intended to remain where she was, she took a seat.
"Well, of course," said Miss Shott, "everybody's got to act according to their own judgments and consciences! If I was going to buy winter things, I'd do what I could to help the business of my own town, and if I did happen to want anything I couldn't get here, I'd surely go to Harrington, where the people might almost be called neighbors!"
Willy laughed outright. "Oh, Miss Shott," she said, "you couldn't buy the things we bought, in Harrington! I don't believe they could be found in Boston!"
"I was speaking about myself," said Miss Nancy. "I could find anything I wanted in Harrington, and if my wants went ahead of what they had there, I should say that my wants were going too far and ought to be curbed! And so you took those poor old Thorpedyke women with you. I expect they must be nearly fagged out. I don't see how the oldest one ever stood being dragged from store to store all over New York, as she must have been! She's a pretty old woman and can't be expected to stand even what another woman, younger than she is, but old enough, and excited by having money to spend, can stand! It's a wonder to me that you brought her back alive!"