He was looking at her gravely and steadily and before his look her own gaze wavered. If they had been alone it is barely possible that ... but they were not alone. Mrs. Tidditt was there and, by this time, as Judah would have said, "her neck-feathers were on end" and her spurs sharpened for battle. She hopped into the pit forthwith.
"I need consider'ble more," she cackled, defiantly. "I've been called a spy and a scandal whisperer and the Lord knows what else. Now I'll say somethin'."
"Esther, be still."
"I shan't be still till I'm ready, not for you, Sears Kendrick, nor for her nor nobody else. I ain't a spy, 'Liz'beth Berry, and I ain't paid by no livin' soul. But I see what I see with the eyes the Almighty give me to see with, and after I've seen it—not alone once but forty dozen times—I'll talk about it if I want to, when I want to, to anybody I want to. Now that's that much."
Elizabeth, scornfully silent, was turning to the door, but the little woman hopped—that seems the only word which describes it—in her way.
"You ain't goin'," she declared, "till I've finished. 'Twon't take me long to say it, but it's goin' to be said. I told Cap'n Sears that Eg Phillips was chasin' 'round with your mother. He is. And if she ain't glad to have him chase her then I never see anybody that was. I said them two was cal'latin' to get married. Well ... well, if they ain't then they'd ought to be, that's all I'll say about that. And don't you ever call me a spy again as long as you live, 'Liz'beth Berry."
She hopped again, to the doorway this time. There she turned for a farewell cackle.
"One thing more," she said. "I told the cap'n I believed the reason that that Eg man wanted to marry Cordelia was on account of her bein' able to give him five thousand dollars and the Fair Harbor to live in. I do believe it. And you can tell her so—or him so. But afore I told anybody I'd think it over, if I was you, 'Liz'beth Berry. And I'd think him over a whole lot afore I'd let him and his 'ily tongue make trouble between you and your real friends.... There! Good-by."
She went away. Kendrick pulled at his beard.
"Elizabeth," he began, hastily, "I'm awfully sorry that this happened. Of course you know that I——"