"Did you call in at your aunt's that same evening, Molly Green?"
"Suppose I did?" retorted Molly.
"And how dare you call in there, and bring--bring--receipts away with you surreptitious?" shrieked Jelly in her anger.
Molly Green stooped to pick up the hammer lying at her feet, speaking quietly as she did so. Some noise was beginning to be heard outside, caused by Turtle's men getting a piano into the house, and Phillis talking to them.
"I can't think what you are a-driving at, Jelly. As to calling in at aunt's, I have a right to do it when I'm out, if time allows. Which it had not that night, at any rate, for I never went nowhere but to the druggist's and Mrs. Gass's. I ran all the way to Dallory, and ran back again; and I don't think I stopped to speak to a single soul, but Timothy Wilks."
Jelly's spirits, which had been rising, fell to wrath again at the name. "You'd better say you got it from him, Molly Green. Don't spare him, poor fellow; whiten yourself."
Molly was beginning to feel just a little wrathful in her turn. Though Jelly was a lady's-maid and superior to herself with her red arms and rough hands, that could be no reason for attacking her in this way.
"And what if I did get it from him, pray? A plum-pudding prescription's no crime."
"But a copy of an anonymous letter is," retorted Jelly, the moment's anger causing her to forget caution. "Don't you try to brazen it out to me, girl."
"WHAT?" cried Molly, staring with all her eyes.