But by this time Harris's chuckling appreciation of Mr. Blair's cleverness in getting in ahead had evaporated. "My, my, my, Miss Nannie!" he said, his weak blue eyes blinking with fright, "I wouldn't tell her, not if you'd gimme the Works!"
"Harris, if you were in my place, would you try to, at supper?"
"Now, Miss, how can I tell? She'll be wild; my, my; wild!"
"I don't see why. Mr. Blair had a right to get married."
"He'd ought to have let on to her about it," Harris said.
For a few minutes Nannie was stricken dumb. Then she sought encouragement again: "Perhaps if you had something nice for supper, she'd be—pleased, you know, and take it better?"
"There's to be cabbage. Maybe that will soften her up. She likes it; gor, how she likes cabbage!" said Harris, almost weeping.
"Harris, how do you think she'll take it?"
"She won't take it well," the old man said. "Miss Elizabeth was Mr. David's girl. When I come to think it over, I don't take it well myself, Miss Nannie. Nor you don't, neither. No, she won't take it well."
"But Miss Elizabeth had broken with Mr. David," Nannie defended her brother; "Mr. Blair had a right—" then she shivered. "But I've got to tell her! Oh, Harris, I think she wouldn't mind so much, if he told her himself?"