“What’s all this noise about, Nan?”
“I’ve been calling you for five minutes. They’re all there—in the fourteen-acre.”
“Who?”
“Why, Mrs. Murchison and the Canon, and old Lady Gillingham, and half a dozen more. Dr. Murchison sent one of the boys over for you.”
Mr. Carrington began to hustle.
“Dang it, I expected them to-morrow!”
“What a man you are, dad!” and she stood like an armed angel of scorn in the middle of the path; “you can’t go and see them in your shirt-sleeves.”
“Bless my soul, Nan, where’s my coat?”
“On the fence. You were talking to Mr. Burt long enough to forget it. Why didn’t you bring him in?”
Mr. Carrington was struggling into his alpaca coat, his daughter watching his contortions with the superior serenity of seventeen.