"Be quiet, Aunty, and get breakfast; it's a friend of ours."
"Hi-yi! I know all 'bout them kind o' friends, honey; same kind as comes South in wah times, a trampen' into houses o' quality folks an sleepen' whah they liked, an' callen' theyselves friends. He's a moven' now!—less call the folks!"
The attempted yell was silenced by Rachel clapping her hand over the full lips and holding her tightly.
"Don't be a fool!" she admonished the old woman impatiently. "I let the man in last night; it's all right. Go and get him a good breakfast."
Aunty Luce eyed the girl as if she thought her a conspirator against the safety of the house, and despite precautions, managed to slip upstairs to Tillie with a much-garbled account of thieves in the night, and wartimes, and tramps, and Miss Rache.
Much mystified, the little woman dressed quickly, and came down the stairs to find her husband shaking hands quite heartily with Genesee. Instantly she forgot the multitudinous reasons there were for banning him from the bosom of one's family, and found herself telling him he was very welcome.
"I reckon in your country a man would wait to hear someone say that before stowing his horse in their stables, or himself in their beds," he observed.
His manner was rather quiet, but one could see that the heartiness of their greeting was a great pleasure, and, it may be, a relief.
"Do you call that a bed?" asked Tillie, with contemptuous warmth. "I do think, Mr. Genesee, you might have wakened some of us, and given us a chance to treat a guest to something better."
"I suppose, then, I am not counted in with the family," observed Rachel, meekly, from the background. "I was on hand to do the honors, but wasn't allowed to do them. I even went to the stable to receive the late-comer, and was told to skip into the house, and given a general understanding that I interfered with his making himself comfortable in the hay-mow."