Adam sat agape for a moment, and then said, speaking as calmly as before, "What home, Ruth? Why, what home but this?"
"This, indeed! This is not your home," said Mrs. Fairbrother.
"Not my home!" said Adam, slowly, dropping back in his seat like one who is [dumbfounded].
"Not my home! Did you say that this was not my home?" he said, suddenly bracing up. "Why, woman, I was born here; so was my father before me, and my father's father before him. Five generations of my people have lived and died here, and the very roof rafters over your head must know us."
"Hoity-toity!" cried Mrs. Fairbrother, "and if you had lived here much longer not a rafter of them all would have been left to shelter us. No, sir. I've kept the roof on this house, and it is mine."
"It is yours, indeed," said Adam slowly, "for I gave it you."
"You gave it me!" cried Mrs. Fairbrother. "Say I took it as my right when all that you had was slipping through your fingers like sand, as everything does that ever touches them."
At that hard word old Adam drew himself up with a great dignity of bearing, and said—
"There is one thing that has indeed slipped through my fingers like sand, and that is the fidelity of the woman who swore before God forty and odd years ago to love and honor me."
"Crinkleum-crankum!" cried Mrs. Fairbrother. "A pretty thing, truly, that I should toil and moil at my age to keep house and home together ready and waiting for you, when your zany doings have shut every other door against you. Misfortunes, indeed! A fine name for your mistakes!"