Mrs. Prymmer said nothing more until an attenuated jam roll came on, when she observed, feebly, "Let me pass you a bit of pudding, Micah; you'll want something to stay your stomach before night."
"To stay my stomach," he roared, with well-assumed fury. "I ain't got any left; it's all worn out."
Mrs. Prymmer subsided after this, and her son and his wife finished their meal in silence.
"Derrice," said Justin, drawing his wife aside before he left the house, "you will find some fruit in your room. Have patience, dear,—the bill of fare will soon improve."
Derrice smiled sweetly under his gentle touch, and when he kissed her, and murmured, "Patient little wife," she blushed with pleasure, and went to the window to watch him going with his slow and measured pace down the different flights of steps to the street.
Mrs. Prymmer meanwhile sat in the dining-room, trembling like a person awaiting doom, and fascinated helplessly by the strangely fiery eye of her cousin.
"Hippolyta Prymmer," he was saying, angrily, "haven't I been boarding in this here house for twenty years?"
"Yes, Micah."
"Haven't I paid you out good board money all the time,—eleven dollars a week?"
"Yes, Micah."