"There's been great doin's in yer hoose in yer absence. Marg'et 's been tellin' yer sister's servant a' aboot Mary's luv affairs. Mary tell't her 'at Eesabelle bade her write Willum Axworthy an' spier his intentions; that if she didna, Mrs. Davvit said she'd d'it hersel'. An' a' the time she's correspondin' wi' a yunger ane, an Axworthy tae, 'at she tells Marg'et she likes a hape better. Yer sister's sair affronted to think o' the w'y the fem'ly name's bein' cairted thro' the mire."
Belle came out on the veranda, her broad hat in her hand, ready to walk down to the train with me.
"So Axworthy didn't propose at the Fair?" said I, when we were out of earshot of the cottage.
"No; and I think it's a crying shame, too, after the way he appropriated the girl all last winter, and in Chicago too."
"A great relief to you! Well, I guess the whole town knows by this time that you made Mary write and ask his intentions."
"This is too much! Has your mother——"
"Mary's been making a confidante of Margaret, that's all. That inestimable domestic is so much one of ourselves, it was hard for the unsophisticated mind to know exactly where to draw the line."
"I hope she has drawn the line at showing Margaret his reply. I haven't seen that myself."
"What can you expect it to be? If he had wanted to marry the girl there was nothing to prevent him asking her, and if he did not, no letter of yours would make him want to."
"She wrote it herself, and all she said was that she would like to know definitely how she stood with him. I did nothing but correct the spelling."