Margaret Slattery brought up the hot water and some fresh firewood for his stove, in which the fire burned low.
"Would you be liking a drink of whiskey, Mr. Thane?" she inquired, with a stealthy look over her shoulder. "You're all done up,—and half-frozen, I guess."
"Whiskey?" he exclaimed. "There ain't no sitch animal," he lamented dolefully.
"Miss Jennie's got some cooking brandy stuck away in the cellar," whispered Margaret. "We use it at Christmas time,—for the plum pudding, you know. I guess it's the same thing as whiskey, ain't it?"
"Well, hardly. Still, I think I could do with a nip of it, Maggie."
"I'll see what I can do," said Margaret, and departed.
She did not return, for the very good reason that Miss Jennie apprehended her in the act of pouring something from a dark brown bottle into a brand new fruit jar.
"What are you doing there, Maggie?" demanded Miss Dowd from the foot of the cellar stairs.
Miss Slattery's back was toward her at the time. She was startled into hunching it slightly, as if expecting the lash of a whip,—an attitude of rigidity maintained during the brief period in which her heart suspended action altogether.
"I'm—I'm getting some vinegar for Mr. Thane to gargle with, Miss Jennie," she mumbled. "He's—he's got a sore throat."