"I'll go, if thee'll let me apast," said the old woman, humbly curtsying to the men, who now jammed up the doorway.
"It's a cussed shame, Venners," said Joe, when she was out. "Why can't yer humor the old gran a bit? She's the chicken-heartedest woman ever I knowed," explanatory to Miss Defourchet, "an' these ten years she's been mad-like, waitin' for that hang-dog son of hers to come back."
Mary followed her out on the stoop, where she stood, her ragged green umbrella up, her sharp little face turned anxiously to the far sea-line.
"Bad! bad!" she muttered, looking at Mary.
"The storm? Yes. But you ought not to be out in such weather," kindly, putting her furred hand on the skinny arm.
The woman smiled,—a sweet, good-humored smile it was, in spite of her meagre, hungry old face.
"Why, look there, young woman,"—pulling up her sleeve, and showing the knotted tendons and thick muscles of her arm. "I'm pretty tough, thee sees. There's not a boatman in Ocean County could pull an oar with me when I was a gell, an' I'm tough yet,"—hooking her sleeve again.
The smile haunted Miss Defourchet; where had she seen it before?
"Was Derrick strongly built?"—idly wishing to recall it.
"Thee's a stranger; maybe thee has met my boy?"—turning on her sharply. "No, that's silly,"—the sad vagueness coming back into the faded eyes. After a pause,—"Derrick, thee said? He was short, the lad was,—but with legs and arms as tender and supple as a wild-cat's. I loss much of my strength when he was born; it was wonderful, for a woman, before; I giv it to him. I'm glad of that! I thank God that I giv it to him!"—her voice sinking, and growing wilder and faster. "Why! why!"