XXXII
MRS. PORTER drove down the village street between the rows of scattered houses till she arrived at a modest cottage with a white paling fence in front and a few stunted flowers. Here she alighted. There was a hitching-post, with an old horseshoe nailed near the top for a hook, and, throwing the reins over it, she went into the yard. Some one came to a window and parted the curtains. It was Hillhouse. He turned and stepped quickly to the door, a startled expression of inquiry on his face.
“Come in, come in,” he said. “Really, I wasn't looking for anybody to drop in so early in the day; and this is the first time you've ever called, Sister Porter.”
With a cold nod she walked past him into the little white-walled, carpetless hall.
“You've got a parlor, haven't you?” she asked, cautiously looking around.
“Oh yes; excuse me,” he stammered, and he awkwardly opened a door on the right. “Walk in, walk in. I'm awfully rattled this morning. Seeing you so sudden made me—”
“I hope the Marshall family across the street weren't watching as I got out,” she broke in, as she preceded him into the parlor. “People talk so much here, and I wanted to see you privately. Let a woman with a grown daughter go to an unmarried preacher's house and you never hear the last of it.”
She sat down in a rocking-chair and looked about her, he thought, with an expression of subdued excitement. The room was most simply furnished. On the floor lay a rag carpet, with rugs of the same material. A cottage organ stood in one corner, and a round, marble-topped table in the centre of the room held a lamp and a plush-covered album. On the white walls hung family portraits, black-and-white enlarged photographs. The window looking towards the street had a green shade and white, stiffly starched lace curtains..
“Your mother and sister—are they in the house?” Mrs. Porter asked.