Seizing two hot, pudgy hands Polly dragged the pair indoors—though they held back mainly on principle. They were not affectionate children; they were too strong of will and set of purpose for that; but if they had a fondness for anyone it was for their Aunt Polly: she was ruler over a drawerful of sugar-sticks, and though she scolded she never slapped.
While this was going on Hempel stood, the picture of indecision, and eased now one foot, now the other, as if his boots pinched him.
At length he blurted out: "I was wondering, ma'am—ahem! Miss Turnham—if, since it is an agreeable h'evening, you would care to take a walk to that 'ill I told you of?"
"Me take a walk? La, no! Whatever put such an idea as that into your head?" cried Sarah; and tatted and tatted, keeping time with a pretty little foot.
"I thought per'aps ..." said Hempel meekly.
"I didn't make your thoughts, Mr. Hempel," retorted Sarah, laying stress on the aspirate.
"Oh no, ma'am. I 'ope I didn't presume to suggest such a thing"; and with a hangdog air Hempel prepared to slink away.
"Well, well!" said Sarah double quick; and ceasing to jerk her crochet-needle in and out, she nimbly rolled up her ball of thread. "Since you're so insistent ... and since, mind you, there's no society worth calling such, on these diggings...." The truth was, Sarah saw that she was about to be left alone with Mahony—Jerry had sauntered off to meet Ned—and this TETE-A-TETE was by no means to her mind. She still bore her brother-in-law a grudge for his high-handed treatment of her at the time of John's bereavement. "As if I had been one of the domestics, my dear—a paid domestic! Ordered me off to the butcher's in language that fairly shocked me."
Mahony turned his back and strolled down to the river. He did not know which was more painful to witness: Hempel's unmanly cringing, or the air of fatuous satisfaction that succeeded it. When he returned, the pair was just setting out; he watched Sarah, on Hempel's arm, picking short steps in dainty latchet-shoes.
As soon as they were well away he called to Polly.