After dinner she started on the ironing and proved herself to be as capable in that line as in everything else.
"Maybe she's been a shopgirl, Ira," Prudence observed in private to her husband; "but Sarah Honey didn't neglect teaching her how to keep any man's home neat and proper."
"Sh!" admonished Cap'n Ira. "Don't put no such ideas in the gal's head."
"What ideas?" the old woman asked wonderingly.
His eyes twinkled and he rewarded himself with a generous pinch of snuff before repeating his bon mot:
"If you don't tell her she'll make some man a good wife, maybe she won't never know it! Looker out, Prudence! A-choon!"
CHAPTER XIII
SOME YOUNG MEN APPEAR
A house plant brought out into the May sunshine and air expands almost immediately under the rejuvenating influences of improved conditions. Its leaves uncurl; its buds develop; it turns at once and gratefully to the business of growing which has been restricted during its incarceration indoors.