“Yes,” said Sidney, looking at her with the confidence in his eyes of one who, loving his fellow-creatures more than life, expects and anticipates their love in return; one does not often see this expression, but one often sees the residuum left after the ignorance it bespeaks has been melled and mingled by experience.
“Mr. Lansing is over at the unction sale at Abiron Ranger’s,” said Temperance. “You’ll excuse me, my jell’s a-waitin’ for me, and whatever time other folks has to waste I’ve none! You’ll excuse me! I know nothing about boarders and sich!”
“Boarders,” said Sidney in alarm, looking about for signs of the enemy. “Do you take boarders?”
“It would seem so now,” said Temperance, cuttingly. “It would sertingly seem so.”
“Oh, bless you!” said Sidney. “I’m not a boarder! I’m a visitor. There’s a great difference, isn’t there? I’m the son of old Sidney Martin, the county clerk who went away to Boston and married there. You have heard of him, haven’t you?”
“Yes, I have,” said Temperance, throwing one end of her apron over her head to shield off the sun. “Yes, I have, though I was in short petticoats and my hair in a pig-tail when it happened. He went to Bosting and married rich, didn’t he?”
“He married in Boston,” said Sidney. “Where is Mr. Ranger’s?”
“Abiron Ranger lives two miles down the road, across to the right,” said Temperance. “He died a week ago Wednesday, and there’s an unction sale there to-day. There’s goin’ to be a divide up. The widow wants her thirds. A very pushin’ woman Mis’ Ranger is.”
“Two miles more,” said Sidney, with something like a sigh.
Miss Tribbey’s keen eyes noted that he was white as from recent illness.