"I am Mrs. Isaac Dimock, that's who I am, and I shall tell my husband what you have been saying about him and his father."
"That won't be any news to Ikey; better tell him somethin' new. He knows that already."
"Why, I never had anyone talk to me in such an insolent way before," the woman protested. "I didn't come here to be insulted."
"Is tellin' the truth insultin' ye?" Abner asked, as he, too, rose to his feet. "If the truth of many things was known it 'ud be better fer all consarned. But, there, I hear the women now. I guess ye've had enough of me."
Abner slipped out of the house as speedily as possible, after telling his wife that a visitor was in the parlor. He sat down upon the wood-pile, and meditated over what had just taken place.
"Ho! ho!" he chuckled. "Her ladyship got a jolt to-day, all right. She thought I didn't know her, eh? I knew her the minute I sot eyes on her. She didn't like what I said about the Dimocks. But I could have told her somethin', too, about her own family-tree. My, wasn't she mad! Ho, ho!"
CHAPTER XI
TOWN RATS
"It seems to me, Tildy," Abner remarked, "that your breakin' into Society is somethin' like the time I broke through the ice skatin' up river."
"In what way?" Mrs. Andrews asked, as she adjusted her hat.