“She went out an hour or so agone for a stroll,” replied the mother mildly. “She has been so steadily stitching at your new shirts, Myles, that I sent her to get a breath of fresh air.”
“Belike it’s she I saw upon the hill; ’twas a white gown, at all events.”
“And like you no longer to see her in white?” asked Barbara, apparently in great surprise. “Why, ’tis to please you she wears it, though it makes a mort of washing for poor Hepsey. But where hast been thyself, goodman?”
“To Plymouth, and Alice Bradford sends you a clutch of eggs from her new brought fowls.”
“Nay, but that’s more than kind!” cried Barbara. “And how fares she, and is it true that Prissie Wright will marry Manasses Kempton? And did you get the grist ground, and what said Miller Jenney of not having it yesterday?”
“Come, come, dame, ’tis not for naught your tongue wags like Priscilla Alden’s all of a sudden. Tell me what man is on the hill with our Lora, and what ’tis you’re keeping from me,—or would if you could. Out with it, Bab! who’s the man I saw up there?”
“Nay, Myles, that’s no tone for you to take towards me! ’Tis not one of the children nor one of the servants you’re speaking to.”
“What! ruffling her feathers like a Dame Partlet if you try to steal the chickens from under her! Nay, wife, that mood’s as strange to you as the chattering one, and both are but put on to turn my mind from its course; but ’tis no use, Bab, no use at all. Come, now, stop these manœuvres and ambushes and false sallies and all your simple strategy, and meet me in the open field. Was it Wrestling Brewster that I saw sitting with Lora on her sunset seat?”
“I know not what you saw, Myles, but I know that Wrestling Brewster went up there to find Lora something like a half hour ago.”
“And you knew it?”