"Wal!" said Mrs. Sprowl, "you can do as you please about lettin' a body in; but I'll give ye to understand one thing—I don't stir a foot from this door till it's opened. And if you want it kept secret that you're here, it'll be a great deal better for you, Penn Hapgood, to let me in, than to keep me standin' or settin' all day on the stairs."
The idea of a long siege struck Toby with dismay. He hesitated; but Penn spoke.
"I am very weak, and very ill, madam. But I have learned what it is to be driven from a door that should be opened to welcome me; and I am not willing, under any circumstances, to treat another as you last night treated me."
This was spoken to the lady's face; for Toby, seeing that concealment was at an end, had slipped the bolt, and she had come in.
"Wal! now! Mr. Hapgood!" she began, with a simper, which betrayed a little contrition and a good deal of crafty selfishness,—"you mustn't go to bein' too hard on me for that. Consider that I'm a poor widder, and my life war threatened, and I had to do as I did."
"Well, well," said Penn, "I certainly forgive you. Give her a chair, Toby."
Toby placed the chair, and widow Sprowl sat down.
"I couldn't be easy—old friends so—till I had come over to see how you be," she said, folding her hands, and regarding Penn with a solemn pucker of solicitude. "I know, 'twas a dreadful thing; but it's some comfort to think it's nothing I'm any ways to blame fur. It's hard enough for me to lose a boarder, jest at this time,—say nothing about a friend that's been jest like one of my own family, and that I've cooked, and washed, and ironed fur, as if he war my own son!"
And Mrs. Sprowl wiped her eyes, while she carefully watched the effect of her words.
"I acknowledge, you have cooked, washed, and ironed for me very faithfully," said Penn.