The dinner up stairs was a very quiet and uninterrupted one. The dinner down stairs was destined not to be so.
The first break was the entrance of Cindy with a bunch of flowers—which the doctor had sent to Miss Derrick, with the desire to know how she was. Faith received the flowers with a dubious face and put them in water on the dinner-table, where they looked splendid. Mrs. Derrick could hardly see their splendour.
"He needn't think to come round me that way," she said. "Child! I wouldn't let you go off with him again for twenty kingdoms!"
"Not with those horses, mother."
"Nor with any others. I sha'n't ever want to have you go with anybody again, Faith."
"What's goin' on here?" said a growling voice which they knew, before Mr. Simlins entered the door of the dining room. "That gal o' yourn wants me to stay politely in the parlour yonder—but I ain't polite—and I come to see you, not your doors and windows nor the pretty paper on your walls. What are you all about, Mrs. Derrick? I hear the very spirit of turbidness has got into this house!"
"There's not much spirit in me to-day," said Mrs. Derrick, "nor spirits neither. I've lost what little I had. Anybody could knock me down with a straw. Sit down, Mr. Simlins, and take some dinner."
"I'm afeard, if it's done so easy, I might occasionally do it with one o' them posies," said Mr. Simlins standing and surveying the bouquet as if he didn't know what to make of it. "Do you eat the grass of the field at your noon-spell?"
"You may ask Faith," said Mrs. Derrick; "she put 'em there."
"Sit down, Mr. Simlins," said Faith.