"Certainly. You did not suppose I was to impose myself on my friends as a settled fact, did you?" She smiled, but it was only as a feeble ray struggling across the chill, damp cloud, where the winter's snows were gathering.
"But it will look strangely, and I beg your pardon, one might think a trifle suspicious; it may be a fear lest you should meet them. I do not say that I think so, but such things might be said!"
"A new development, my dear! Is it prescience or imagination that is now whirling in your prolific brain?"
"Do not jest, Hiram; really there is a seriousness in all this. Why could you not have been a good staid old Quaker, like your father, so that you could have been sensible when circumstances seemed to demand it?"
"Hardly, according to nature, wife, to be old, like my honored sire, as our birthdays did not come in the same year."
This little humorous parley gave their guest ample time to recover from her shock of indignation and alarm. How was this to end? Would her departure excite suspicion? But it was known here, without doubt,—a part, if not the whole truth—for letters had been received from Washington into which she had not been permitted to have a peep. Lillian knew where her mother had taken refuge, and, probably, was expecting to meet her.
"What shall I do?" darted up through her accumulating perplexities, and burst from her quivering lips.
"Do? Why stay where you are, and welcome your child as a mother should, greet her husband cordially and sensibly. It must be done, and what have you to fear? Are you a criminal fleeing from justice and dare not come in contact with honest people? You need not look at me so, certainly if you abscond on the very eve of their arrival these are the only conclusions that can be adduced. Is it not so husband?"
"Face the music, Charlotte; face the music! If your native zeal has carried you outside the track, switch on again, and go ahead. But here I am wasting my precious time listening to two silly women, and on an empty stomach at that! Charlotte, why did you not bring along one of your ebony faithfuls? I am getting tired of waiting three times a day for my meals."
"Irene is slow, but I ought to have attended to my duties better. The fact is, I am getting out of house-keeping and gone into the business of minding other people's affairs," and the good lady walked out of the room.