“I can’t help it,” replied Rebecca with almost a wail. “I am nervous. There’s enough to make me so, the Lord knows.”
“What do you mean by that?” asked Caroline with her old air of sharp suspicion, and something between challenge and dread of its being met.
Rebecca shrank.
“Nothing,” said she.
“Then I wouldn’t keep speaking in such a fashion.”
Emma, returning from the closed door, said imperiously that it ought to be fixed, it shut so hard.
“It will shrink enough after we have had the fire a few days,” replied Caroline. “If anything is done to it it will be too small; there will be a crack at the sill.”
“I think Henry ought to be ashamed of himself for talking as he did to Edward,” said Mrs. Brigham abruptly, but in an almost inaudible voice.
“Hush!” said Caroline, with a glance of actual fear at the closed door.
“Nobody can hear with the door shut.”