Miss Pamela folded her thin arms across her breast, and regarded her calmly.
“Miss Jenkins, I don’t think there’s going to be any fair,” she remarked, succinctly.
The blood of youth boiled at the finality of it. “Oh, yes, there is, Miss Roscoe; I told you that I’d made all the arrangements.”
“Well, I’ve been making some arrangements, too.”
“And everybody’s going to help—your cousin, Mrs. Collamer, and Dorothea Roscoe and Roscoe Collamer and Mrs. Collamer Roscoe and your cousin Paterson.”
“Paterson, indeed!” Miss Roscoe’s voice showed its first touch of warmth as she seized the conversation. “Miss Jenkins,” she said, “you’re a young woman, and a well-meaning one, and my feelings toward you are kindly. But a mistake has been made. There ain’t going to be any fair!
“I know all about your plans, knew ’em from the minute you started talking ’em over with the minister and cousin Parthenia, down at the meeting house. After she left you, she came right over and told me.”
“But she seemed very enthusiastic,” began Annie, feebly.
“Yes, seemed,” interrupted the older woman, “but she didn’t dare! Cousin Parthenia never set herself up against me yet, and she’s getting a little too well on in years to begin. Next day there was quite a meeting of our folks here. My back gate kept a-clicking till sundown. All but Paterson came, Miss Jenkins, and he’s less than half a Roscoe, and no Collamer at all. His mother was one of them white-livered Lulls, from Pomfret. He’s bound, anyway, to stand by you, because he’s getting wages from your uncle. Well, I settled it all then and there, this fair business, I mean, but I told them to wait, for I some expected to see you!”
Annie’s eyes opened wide. “I meant to come before; I’m afraid I am a little late.” Her attitude was deprecatory; it might have moved a stone, but it produced no impression on her listener.