Mrs. Prymmer with an indignant face retreated into the hall, and left her daughter-in-law alone with her caller.
"That's the way to manage her, my dear," said Miss Gastonguay, shortly. "She is a born bully; if you don't bully her, she will bully you. She ought to have died in her cradle and gone a happy infant to paradise. Will you come and take a drive with me? My niece was to call this afternoon on you, but she is off somewhere gallivanting with the clergyman, so I thought I'd come myself. First I said I wouldn't, then I repented, like the man in the Bible. Come, put your hat on, child. I'm all right. You needn't distrust me, I'm Jane Gastonguay, spinster, and owner of half Rossignol. You couldn't sell this house you are standing in without my permission. Mr. Huntington sent me, so he will vouch for me. I'll neither upset you nor throw you in among the ice-blocks in the river. Come, I can't wait."
Derrice suppressed the surprise with which she at first surveyed the little, gentlemanly, short-legged lady in the broadcloth coat, and with a murmured, "You are very kind," hurried up-stairs and got a hat and jacket.
A few minutes later they were going side by side down the stone steps and across the snow-covered patch of lawn to the street.
"Have you seen Rossignol yet?" asked Miss Gastonguay.
"No, except for one or two short walks up and down this avenue."
"We don't call this an avenue, child, we call it a street, in spite of the magnificent elms," said Miss Gastonguay, stepping to the gutter and picking up a fur lap-robe. "Now where is that brat of a pony?" and putting two fingers in her mouth she whistled shrilly.
"Look at him coming from the parsonage," she went on, "his mouth full of bread and sugar and rattling my new cart over the gutters. I declare there is nothing bigger than his appetite but the public debt of Maine. Come here, you villain. You are worse than a dog, creeping around to back doors while your mistress is calling."
Derrice smiled as the fat white animal, with a mischievous roll of his light eyes at his mistress, hurried down the drive to the street, and, with the dexterity of a veteran, wheeled the cart directly in front of her.
Derrice got in, and Miss Gastonguay, after a soft slap on the animal's neck, followed her.