"Oho! So you had your love-affairs, like the rest of us, Mrs. Slawson. Do tell! Is the heart-broken lover still hanging on, or——"
"Heart-broken nothin'!" ejaculated Martha scornfully. "Gilroy's as chipper as a squirrel, an' don't you forget it!"
Ma wagged a sagacious head. "But he never married, Martha. You know that, as good as me. An' it's not for the lack of chances, itself. There's many a girl would give her eye-teeth for'm, wit' the riches he has, an' dressin' like a dood, the day."
Mrs. Peckett sighed. "Well, well, and I thought you to be such a sober, steady-going woman, Mrs. Slawson! But it seems you've had your romance, too! It's a surprise, but—live and learn! Live and learn!"
"That's just it!" Martha returned. "We don't. We live, but we don't learn, more's the pity. Have a cup o' tea. Ma relishes it, along about this time in the afternoon, an' it won't be a mite o' trouble. An' you must sample some cookies I made this mornin'. I'm quite stuck on my own cookies, if I do say it, as shouldn't."
After her guest had eaten, drunk, and departed, Martha observed with more than usual gravity,
"Say, Ma, you never want to mention anythin' to Mrs. Peckett you wouldn't just as lief was posted on a board-fence."
"Why, what call have you to say that to me, I should like to know, Martha Carrol?"
"Nothin' much, only—I kind, o' wish she hadn't got wind o' Gilroy."
"I do declare!" whimpered Ma, "Did you ever hear the like? If I so much as open me lips, I'm rebuked for't, the way I'd bring confusion on the fam'ly. Better for me, if I kep' to me own room entirely, an' never set foot here at all, to be accused o' settin' the neighbors gossipin' when 'twas never me, in the first place, but yourself alone, mentioned Gilroy's name."