“Drat the man, is he never coming!”
Mrs. Baxter smoothed her dress, and stood listening irritably, an angular and inelegant silhouette against the lamp-light.
“Just hear Tom groaning.”
“And that poor ninny sitting by the bed and trying to look wise. Ain’t that a light over the willows? I shall lose my temper if it ain’t Murchison.”
Miss Harriet tilted her head like an attentive parrot.
“I can hear the thing puffing.”
“Just keep quiet—can’t you?”
“Lor, Mary, you are peevish!”
“How can I listen with all your chattering?”
Murchison, depressed and out of heart, met these two ladies at the farm-house door. They greeted him with no relieved and hysterical profuseness. Mrs. Baxter extended a red-knuckled hand, looking like a woman ready to express a grievance.