CHAPTER XXVIII.
A SALT-FISH DINNER.
“Nay, Betty, flout me not! ’Tis an honest word I’ve said to you, and I look to have it answered honestly.”
“I know not what you call honest, Master Alexander Standish”—
“There, now! You can’t even speak without a gibe at my high-sounding name. I count it right down unkind, Betty”—
“Then if I don’t please you, there’s the road home. Isn’t your name Alexander in very sooth, or is that a by-name your mother calls you for short?”
“It seems to me, Mistress Alden, that your humor is a little shrewish.”
“There, that will do! Never speak to me again so long as you’ve breath to speak at all.”
“Nay, Betty, I crave your pardon. ’Twas rude of me, but you put me past my patience.”
“Which is such a straitened foothold the least jostle will drive you from it.”