The deacon paused to cut himself a wedge of tobacco imperturbably. There was no trace of his disappointment visible; with characteristic promptitude he was ready for the next best thing.
“Well, who wants her to marry anybody else?” he asked, raising his eyebrows. “You don’t, do you?”
“N-n-o,” gasped Mrs. Strang, purpling.
“Thet’s right. Give her her head a bit. It don’t do to tie a grown-up gal to her mammy’s apron-strings. You may take a horse to the water, but you kin’t make her drink, hey? No, no, don’t you worry Harriet with forcin’ husbands on her.”
“I—I—kinder—thought—” gasped Mrs. Strang, looking handsomer than ever in the rosy glow of confusion.
“You kinder thought—” echoed Old Hey, spitting accurately under the stove.
“Thet you wanted Harriet—”
“Thet’s so. I guessed she could live here more comfortable than to home. I don’t ask no reward; ‘the widder and the orphan,’ as Scripter says—hey?”
“You didn’t mean marriage?”
“Hey?” shouted the deacon. “Marriage? Me? Well, I swow! Me, whose Susan hes only been dead five months! A proper thing to suspec’ me of! Why, all the neighbors ’ud be sayin’, ‘Susan is hardly cold in her grave afore he’s thinkin’ of another.’ ”