"Do eat somethin' more, Mr. Brock; you shorely can live fer one meal on what I have to live on all the time, ef you'll jest eat enough o' hit! Have another aig."
"Eggs are high," remarked Mr. Brock as he lifted two poached eggs to his plate.
"Now, Mr. Brock, I don't disfurnish my fambly, let alone my comp'ny, to sell a few aigs! Let me porch you another un: I'm afeerd them's too hard b'iled fer you!"
After supper, when the men gathered around the big wood fire in the living-room Mr. Brock went back to the kitchen, ostensibly seeking a match, really for a private word with Mrs. Doggett.
"Lily Pearl ought to be a goin' to school before long," he suggested, as he lighted his pipe: "and ef Reub and me had any housekeeper besides that old darky, Jane Smick, she could stay at my house and go, as it's closer to the school-house, and I'd put up the money for the teacher when the pay school went on."
"Lord, I wisht she could!" cried Mrs. Doggett.
Mr. Brock reached up for his overcoat and his hat.
"You hain't a goin', Mr. Brock? Lemme fix the lantern fer you, then; hit's as dark as a dungeon out, and the moon won't be up fer an hour yit!"
Mr. Brock watched her fill the lantern contemplatively.
"Mrs. Doggett," he brought himself to say, presently, "certain persons talk against widowers marryin' again. You haven't got that kind of a feelin' have you?"