"I love to hear about people who can ride a hundred miles in a night, and live on roots and berries, and capture men who bristle with revolvers. Please go on. Ben, you needn't listen if you don't want to. You can show Mrs. Haney the automobile or the garden."
Ben laughed. "I like to hear Captain Haney talk quite as well as anybody, but I'll be glad to show Mrs. Haney any of your neighbors' things she cares to see."
Alice turned to Bertha. "I suppose the Captain's tales are all old songs in your ears?"
"No, they're mostly all new to me. The Captain never tells stories to me."
Haney winked. "She knows me too well. She wouldn't believe them."
"Go on, please," said Alice. And so Haney took up the thread, though he protested. "'Tis a tale for candle-light," he explained.
Ben was studying Bertha with renewed admiration. "Where did she get that exquisite profile?" he thought.
The story was again interrupted by a group of callers, among them Mrs. Crego, and though Alice loyally stood by the Haneys and introduced them boldly, Mrs. Crego's cold nod and something that went out from the eyes of her companions made Bertha suffer, and she went away with a feeling of antagonism in her heart. Did these people consider her beneath their respect?
Haney remarked as they rode away: "If black eyes could freeze, sure we'd be shiverin' this minute. Did ye see Mrs. Crego pucker up when she sighted us?"
"I did, and it settled her for me," replied Bertha.