Her steady old eyes seemed able to penetrate mere outward signs.
“Quite right, ‘Aunt’ Sarah,” said Alice decidedly. “Leave the nostrums and quackeries alone. Prue will be all right after a nice cup of tea. Now, mother Hephzy, one of your best for the invalid, and, please, I’ll have some more ham.”
“That you shall, you flighty harum-scarum. And to think o’ the likes o’ you dictating to me about nostrums and physickings,” replied the farm-wife, with a comfortable laugh. “I’ll soon be having Mary teaching me to toss a buckwheat ‘slap-jack.’ Now see an’ cut from the sides o’ that ham where the curin’s primest. I do allow as the hams didn’t cure just so, last winter. Folks at my board must have of the best.”
“I never knew any one to get anything else here,” 276 laughed Alice. Then she turned her head sharply and sat listening.
Mrs. Malling looked over towards the window. Prudence silently sipped her tea, keeping her eyes lowered as much as possible. She knew that, in spite of their talk, these kindly people were worried about her, and she tried hard to relieve their anxiety.
“Some one for us,” said Alice, as the sound of horse’s hoofs came in through the open window.
“Some one from Lakeville, I expect,” said Mrs. Malling, making a guess.
“That’s George Iredale’s horse,” said Sarah, who had detected the sound of a pacer’s gait.
Prudence looked up in a startled, frightened way. Sarah was looking directly at her. She made no further comment aloud, but contented herself with a quiet mental note.
“Something wrong,” she thought; “and it’s to do with him. Poor child, poor child. Maybe she’s fretting herself because–––”