It did not escape him that she listened with a sort of concealed eagerness to every word that was said by her guests, and that she started slightly and looked earnestly at Dr. Clendenin the first time he was addressed by name in her hearing.
"What shall we call you, mother?" asked the hunter, lighting his pipe at her fire for an after supper smoke.
"'Taint perticlar, ye can just call me that, if ye like," she returned dryly.
"You don't live here alone," he remarked, glancing at a coat hanging on the wall. "Where's your man now?"
"Off a huntin'. Where's your woman?"
"Don't know, hain't found her yet," he laughed, taking the pipe between his lips and sauntering to the door, outside of which his companions were grouped.
The air there was slightly damp and chill, but far preferable to that within, which reeked with a mixture of smells of stale tobacco, garlic, boiled cabbage and filth combined.
It was growing dark.
The woman lighted a candle and set it on the table, muttering half aloud, as Zeb rose and pushed back his chair:
"I'm glad you're done at last."