Keturah considered; she had a helpless sense of tossing Jonah and the whale to and fro in an effort to understand the connection of Deb’s last remark. To this sober, long-nosed old woman, the pastor’s devoted servant, the mental processes of the widow’s cherry-cheeked Deb were often hard to understand. Keturah thought her distinctly light-minded, but without Deb the old woman would have been lost. In the last ten years, in which the Reverend Samson Jones had been, according to more lenient Wesleyan dispensation and the power of his own eloquence, returned twice to Gelligaer, Keturah had conceived a real love for and dependence on Deb.
“Marry the widow Jenkin Morgan?” she repeated.
“Aye, the mistress.”
“Are her parents ailin’?”
“Nay,” admitted Deb, crestfallen.
“Then what made ye say it?”
“I dunno,” replied Deb, “but I’ve a feelin’ here”—she patted her corsage with bright assurance—”that somethin’ is comin’, aye, somethin’ is comin’, now isn’t it?”
“How can I tell? I’m thinkin’ it will not be the widow whatever.”
“Tut, he loves her, now doesn’t he?”