"Well, you ought so to do," said Mrs. Weight, impressively. "It come to me right in meetin', when I ought to have ben listenin' to the sermon,—though the land knows I have hard work to listen sometimes, the sort o' talk Elder Bliss gives us: Gospel's well enough, but a person wants some doctrine, and it don't set good, any way, shape, or manner, for a man of his years to be the everlastin' time tellin' them as might be his mothers that they'd oughter do thus and so. I was leadin' in prayer when Elder Bliss was a bottle-baby, at least he looks it if ever I see one. But what I started in to say was, it come over me all of a suddent that what you wanted was a bottle of my spring med'cine, and so I brought you one."
She produced a bottle from under her shawl, and set it on the table with a defiant air.
"I am much obliged to you, Malvina," Miss Wax began; but Mrs. Weight went on impressively.
"Now you want to take that med'cine, Bethia Wax! You want to take a gre't spoonful with your victuals, and in between your victuals. You take three bottles of that remedy, and you won't know yourself for the same woman. If you're a mind to pay me fifty cents for this bottle and sixty for the next two (that's thirty cents apiece, three spoonfuls for a cent, less than half what you'd pay for any boughten stuff), you may, and, if not, it's all ekal to me; the Lord will provide. He feeds the ravens when they call, and I've never had no doubts of bein' one, far as I'm concerned."
Mrs. Weight here drew a long and deep breath, settled herself deeper in her chair, and took a fresh start.
"So now that's off my mind, and my dooty done, whether it's ordered that you should remain, or pass away same as your folks has done. Now, there's another thing I come to speak about. Be you goin' to march in this procession?"
Miss Wax colored painfully. "I have not decided, Malvina," she said. "I am considering the matter. Mr. Pindar Hollopeter has invited me to appear as—as Minerva—"
"There!" exclaimed Mrs. Weight. "I knew it. I felt it in these bones!" She indicated the spaces which veiled her anatomy. "I felt certing to my inwards that this would end in pagan blasphemy, and so it has. Oh, that I should live to see jedgment on this village, as I've lived in, and my fathers before me, sence—"
"I do not understand you, Malvina," Miss Wax interrupted, with some warmth. "The Mr. Hollopeters are Christian men, I believe; at least, I know Homer is, and I've never heard anything to the contrary about Pindar."
"Have you ever heard anything about Pindar, anyway?" cried Mrs. Weight, her little eyes gleaming. "Do you, or doos any one in this village know, how or where that man has ben livin' these thirty years past? He never was one to hide his light under a booshel, if he had any to hide. Don't tell me, Bethia Wax! For thirty years Pindar Hollopeter has ben livin' let them know how as he serves, and never a cent, nor so much as a breathin' word for the place that give him birth. But direckly he hears that Mis' Tree has passed away, and left her money to Homer, and Satan's own words and works in regards to changin' the name of this—"