"I declare, if there ain't Mirandy a-comin' up the lane this blessed minute! Talk about angels, you know. Seems if she looked kinder peaked and meachin', though most gen'ally as pert's a lizard. If things was as they used to be, I should jest sing out to her to come right up here; but, bein' she's such an heiress, I s'pose I'd better go down and open the front door."
But before the brisk poor-mistress could reach the front door her visitor had entered, the kitchen.
"I've been kind of low-spirited, and, thinks I, if there is a place where I could get chippered up it's down to the poor-house, where it's always so lively and sociable; and if Mis' Bemis ain't a-goin' to send for me I'll jest go over and find out the reason why."
The speaker, who had seated herself in a rocking-chair, took off her rough straw hat and fanned herself with it energetically, rocking meanwhile. She was about midway in the thirties, plain and almost coarse of feature, but with a suggestion of tenderness about her large mouth that softened her whole face. She had, too, a vigor and freshness which were attractive like the bloom of youth.
"I was jest sayin' to old lady Peaseley that I didn't know how I was a-goin' to get along without you; but I wouldn't 'a' thought of askin' you to come, bein' you're so rich now."
"Be I a-goin' to lay by and twiddle my thumbs and listen to folks advisin' of me jest because I ain't obliged to work? I'm all beat out now doin' nothin'. Since I've bought the old place—gran'ther's farm, you know—I don't seem to be much better off. I can't go to farmin' it this fall; and what can a lone woman do on a farm anyhow?"
"Farmin' is kind of poor business for a woman; but I do hope, Mirandy, you ain't a-goin' to marry that poor, pigeon-breasted, peddlin' cretur that's hangin' round here."
Miranda flushed to the roots of her thick black hair.
"It looks better to see a man round on a farm, if he can't do anything but set on the choppin'-block and whistle," she said, intently surveying her hat-crown.
"If you want to get married, Mirandy, it seems if you ought to have a stiddy, likely man."