Mike put on his hat; he took his pie from the post, and held it, first in one hand and then in the other. He seemed unable to express what he thought.
"Look a here, Mrs. Flower," he said presently, "she told you that, did she?"
"She really did," was the answer.
"Well, then," said Mike, "the long an' the short of it is, she lies. 'Tain't the fust time that old Miss Panney has done that sort of thing. She comes to me one day, more than six year ago, an' says, 'Mike,' says she, 'why don't you marry Phoebe Moxley?' ''Cause I don't want to marry her, nor nobody else,' says I. 'But you ought to,' said she, 'for she's a good woman an' a nice washer an' ironer, an' you'd do well together.' 'Don't want no washin' nor ironin', nor no Phoebe, neither,' says I. But she didn't mind nothin' what I said, an' goes an' tells everybody that me an' Phoebe was goin' to be married; an' then it was we did git married, jest to stop people talkin' so much about it, an' now look at us. Me never so much as gittin' a bite of corn-bread, an' she a boardin' the minister! Jes' you take my word for it, Mrs. Flower, old Miss Panney wants Miss Dora to marry him, an' she's goin' about tellin' people, thinkin' that after a while they'll do it jes' 'cause everybody 'spects them to."
"But don't you think they intend to marry, Mike?" forgetting to address him by his full name.
Mike was about to strike the pie in his right hand with his left, in order to give emphasis to his words, but he refrained in time.
"Don't believe one cussed word of it," said he. "Mr. Haverley ain't the man to do that sort of thing without makin' some of his 'rangements p'int that way, an' none of his 'rangements do p'int that way. If he'd been goin' to git married, he'd told me, you bet, an' we'd laid out the farm work more suitable for a weddin' than it is laid out. I ain't goin' to believe no word about no weddin' till I git it from somebody better nor Miss Panney. If he was goin' to marry anybody, he'd be more like to marry that purty little Miss Drane. She's right here on the spot, an' she ain't pizen proud like them Bannisters. She's as nice as cake, an' not stuck up a bit. Bless my soul! She don't know one thing about nothin'."
"You're very much mistaken, Michael," exclaimed La Fleur. "She is very well educated, and has been sent to the best schools."
"Oh, I don't mean school larnin'," said Mike; "I mean 'bout cows an' chickens. She'll come here when I'm milkin', an' ask me things about the critters an' craps that I knowed when I was a baby. I reckon she's the kind of a lady that knows all about what's in her line, an' don't know nothin' 'bout what's not in her line. That's the kind of young lady I like. No spyin' around to see what's been did, an' what's hain't been did. I've lived with them Bannisters."
La Fleur gazed reflectively upon the ground.