She spoke first. “I’m trying to think—it must be twenty year since we’ve met, Lemuel Fairchild.”
“Nigh onto that, M’tildy,” he replied, turning his hat in his hands.
“I didn’t expect ever to lay eyes on you again, I couldn’t come to you, and wouldn’t if I could, and I didn’t dream you would ever show your face here.” The aged woman said this in a high, sharp voice, speaking rapidly and with an ungracious tone.
Lemuel fidgetted with his hat and moved his feet uneasily on the dog-skin rug. “Yeh needn’t be afeered, M’tildy, I wouldn’t hev come naow ef it hadn’t been somethin’ partikler ’baout Annie.”
The invalid raised her shoulder from the pillow with a sudden movement, and bent her head forward. “What’s happened to her? Is she hurt? Tell me, quick!”
“Oh nao, they ain’t nothin’ th’ matter with her. It’s unly ’baout her ’n’ Seth. I kine o’ thought we ought to talk it over ’n’ see haow the land lay. That’s all.”
“Oh that’s it, is it? Samantha!”
Betrayed out of her shrewdness by the suddenness of the summons the servant girl made her immediate appearance through the hall door.
“Yes, I knew you were listening, you huzzy,” said Mrs. Warren grimly. “You get along up stairs, go into Annie’s room, an’ make a noise of some sort on the melodeon till I call you. Not too much noise, mind; jest enough so I can know you’re up there.” As the girl left the room, the invalid explained: “What she don’t hear, the rest of the Lawtons won’t know. That family’s as good as a detective force for the whole county.” Then, in a less amiable tone: “You might as well set down. What is it about my girl an’ Seth?”
As Lemuel awkwardly seated himself near the bedside and prepared to answer, a wailing, discordant series of sounds came from the floor above. The knowledge that the girl was creating this melancholy noise to order, and on his account, confused his thought and he found himself stating the case much more baldly than he had intended. “The fact is,” he said, stroking his hat over his knee, “Seth’s thinkin’ o’ goin’ away to Tecumsy—Albert’s got him a place there—’n’ so I s’pose it’ll be all up b’twixt him ’n’ Annie.”