"Dear girl," said Philip, "you're quite as clever as I,—which is no compliment,—and everybody adores you. But the idea of your dickering by the hour with farmers and other countrymen—and dickering is simply the soul of our business—is simply ridiculous."
"I don't see why," Grace replied, with a pout, followed by a flash in her deep brown eyes. "Some of the farmers' wives 'dicker,' as you call it, quite as sharply as their husbands. Am I stupider than they?"
"No—no! What an idea! But—they've been brought up to it."
"Which means merely that they've learned it. What women have done woman can do. I hope I'm not in the way in the store when you're talking business?"
"In the way! You delicious hypocrite!"
"Well, I've listened a lot for business' sake, instead of merely for fun. Besides, I do get dreadfully lonesome in the house at times, in spite of a little work and a lot of play—at the piano. Oh, that reminds me of something. Prepare to be startled. A great revival effort is to begin at the church to-morrow night, and a committee of two, consisting of Caleb and Mr. Grateway, the minister, have been to me to know—guess what they wanted."
"H'm! I shouldn't wonder if they wanted you to promise to sit beside the minister, so that all the susceptible young men might be coaxed to church and then shaken over the pit and dragged into the fold. Caleb and the minister have long heads."
"Don't be ridiculous! What they ask is that you'll have our piano moved to the church, and that you'll play the music for the hymns. There's to be a lot of singing, and the church hasn't any instrumental music, you know, and Caleb has been greatly impressed by your playing."
"Well, I'll be—I don't know what. Old fools! I wish they'd asked me direct! They'd have got a sharp, unmistakable 'NO!'"
"So they said; that was the reason they came to me."