"Scalded! How?"
"I shall never be able to tell that, to the end of my days," said Mrs. Starling. "If pots and kettles and that could be possessed, I should know what to think. I was makin' strawberry preserve—and the kettle was a'most full, and it was first rate preserve, and boiling, and almost done, and I had just set it down on the hearth; and then, I don't know how to this day, I stumbled—I don't know over what—and my arm soused right in."
"Boiling sweetmeat!" cried Diana. "Mother, let me see. It must be dreadfully burned."
"It's all done up," said Mrs. Starling coldly. "I was real put out about my preserves."
"Have you had dinner?"
"I never found I could live 'thout eating."
"Who got dinner for you, and cleared away?"
"Nobody. I did it myself."
"For the men and all!"
"Well, they don't count to live without eatin', no mor'n I do," said
Mrs. Starling with a short laugh.