"Oh, yes, I heard you," answered Mrs. Sam, and turned her back on her. Give me a little light-haired woman for sheer devilishness!
I'd expected to see Miss Summers fly to pieces with rage, but she stared at Mrs. Sam's back, and after a minute she laughed.
"I see!" she remarked slowly. "You're the sister, aren't you?"
Mr. Sam had given up trying to hide the bottle and now he set it on the floor with a thump and came over to the fire.
"It's—you see, the situation is embarrassing," he began. "If we had had any idea—"
"I might have been still in the Finleyville hotel!" she finished for him. "Awful thought, isn't it?"
"Under the circumstances," went on Mr. Sam, nervously, "don't you think it would be—er—better form if er—under the circumstances—"
"I'm thinking of my circumstances," she put in, good-naturedly. "If you imagine that six weeks of one-night stands has left me anything but a rural wardrobe and a box of dog biscuit for Arabella, you're pretty well mistaken. I haven't even a decent costume. All we had left after the sheriff got through was some grass mats, a checked sunbonnet and a pump."
"Minnie," Mrs. Sam said coldly, "that little beast of a dog is trying to drink out of the spring!"
I caught her in time and gave her a good slapping. When I looked up Miss Summers was glaring down at me over the rail.