"And he's goin' to get it unless you tie his hands behind him," said Mrs. Stuvic, stepping into the room. "Yes, you bet! Why don't you have that girl play the pian, Mrs.—I can't recollect your name to save my life."
"She didn't bring her music," Mrs. Goodwin replied, and the old woman "whiffed." "Music the cat's foot! Don't she know a tune? Tell her to give me a jig and I'll dance it."
"She won't play, Mrs. Stuvic. It's of no use to ask her."
"She won't? Well, then, she needn't. Mebbe she don't like my pian. But I want to tell you that it's as good as anybody's. I give a hundred and fifty dollars and a colt for it, and the carpenter painted it fresh this spring. But if she don't want to play, she needn't. What's become of that woman—out here last year? Can't think of her name, but her husband moped about and ended up by callin' your young woman a peach. What's become of her?"
"She's gone to the seashore, I understand," Mrs. Goodwin answered, looking slyly at Milford.
"Oh, she has? Well, let her go, there wan't no string tied to her. Bill, I want you to drive over to Antioch for me if you've got the time, and you never appear to be busy when there's women around. They've got the pony hitched up."
Mrs. Goodwin drove with him. Near the old brick house they met the Professor, leading a calf.
He snatched off his hat, and the calf snatched him off his feet, but he scrambled up, tied the rope to a fence-post, and was then ready to do the polite thing, bowing and brushing himself. He had been on the keen jump, he said, catching drift-wood in the commercial whirlpool, but he had often thought of Mrs. Goodwin, one of the noblest of her honored sex. "I have turned from the sylvan paths where wild roses nod," said he, "turned into the dusty highway of trade, but I have not forgotten the roses, madam," he declared with a bow. "They come as a sweet reminiscence of my brighter but less useful days. Permit me to extend to you——"
The calf broke loose and went scampering down the road, a twinkling of white hoofs in the black dust; and with a shout the Professor took to his heels in pursuit.
"Something always happens to that man's dignity," said Mrs. Goodwin, laughing as they drove on. "Is he ever serious?"