"Och, why don't you speak yourself?" retorted Lizzie. "It ain't fur ME to speak!"
The stranger appeared to recognize that he was the subject of a domestic unpleasantness.
"You find it inconvenient to take me to board?" he hesitatingly inquired of Mrs. Hershey. "I shouldn't think of wishing to intrude. There is a hotel in the place, I suppose?"
"Yes. There IS a HOtel in New Canaan."
"I can get board there, no doubt?"
"Well," Mrs. Hershey replied argumentatively, "that's a public house and this ain't. We never made no practice of takin' boarders. To be sure, Jonas he always was FUR boarders. But I AIN'T fur!"
"Oh, yes," gravely nodded the young man. "Yes. I see."
He picked up the dress-suit case which he had set on the sill. "Where is the hotel, may I ask?"
"Just up the road a piece. You can see the sign out," said Mrs. Hershey, while Lizzie banged the bread-box shut with an energy forcibly expressive of her feelings.
"Thank you," responded the gentleman, a pair of keen, bright eyes sweeping Lizzie's gloomy face.