"Hush! — I don't care what folks think."
"Not what nobody thinks?" said Clam.
"What do you mean!" said Elizabeth flashing round upon her.
"Go back into the house. — I will come when I am ready."
"You're ready now," said Clam. "Miss 'Lizabeth, ye ain't fit for anything, for want of eatin'. Come! — they want ye."
"Not much," — thought Elizabeth bitterly, — "if they left it to her to bring me in."
"Are you sick, Miss 'Lizabeth?"
"No."
"He's come home," Clam went on; — "and you never saw the things he has brought! Him and me's been puttin' 'em up and down. Lots o' things. Ain't he a man!"
"'Up and down!'" repeated Elizabeth.
"Egg-zackly," — said Clam; — "Floor-spreads — what-d'ye- call'ems? — and bedsteads — and chairs. He said if he'd know'd the house was all stripped, he'd never have fetched you up here."