“Go away, mother!” came the fretful answer.
“I’m not your mother—if I were I’d slap you. A nice state you’ve got her into!”
“What do you want?” he said in a changed tone.
“Your mother’s left something precious in an envelope under her pillow.”
“I thought you said you’d never cross my doorstep.”
“I didn’t—I came by the window-sill.” But even as her lips gave the obvious repartee, her mind beheld her grandfather scrambling into the room of the Angel-Mother, and it all seemed ineffably silly in view of the tragic realities of life. As if she would not have crossed even an enemy’s threshold to bind up a broken arm!
“Well, suppose you return the same way,” he retorted.
“That’s what I mean to do,” she said, angry again. “I’ve got my rounds.”
“What! In the barge?”
“I don’t want a boat. Long Bradmarsh has kept its head above water and Methusalem’s going just as strong as before the flood.” Then, afraid she had recalled his own dead horses, she added hurriedly: “How’s your arm?”