"Wife, wife, come out!"
The door opened and a middle-aged, pleasant-looking woman appeared. She was flushed as if she had been over the fire, and held some small cooking utensil in her hand.
"Well, Jerry," she said, "what do you want now?"
"Come out and see," he answered.
"Well, but I can't leave the cakes," said she, intent on her housewifely cares; "they will burn."
"Tell Jennie to mind the gridiron," he said, "and do you come out to me."
She went in and reappeared after a minute, coming down the path with her homely check apron thrown over her head.
"What now, Jerry?" she said, half-pettishly, half good-naturedly. "What is lost this morning? A pity I have to mind the farm-tools as well as the frying-pans!"
Jerry, whom this home thrust betrayed to be a good-natured, shiftless fellow, dependent on his better-half's more orderly ways, looked up to laugh, then checked himself, awed by the presence of that still form at his feet.
"There's naught misplaced this time, my dear," he said; "you shouldn't be forever twitting a poor, careless fellow with his faults."