Roberts, ruefully: “I don’t know. She’s Irish, and a Catholic.”
Campbell: “They’re apt to be Irish, and Catholics too. Well, Roberts, I don’t see what you can ask better. All you’ve got to do is to pick out a respectable butter-ball of that religion and nationality, and tell her you’re Mrs. Roberts’s husband, and you’re to keep her from slipping away till Mrs. Roberts gets here.”
Roberts: “Oh, pshaw, now, Willis! What would you do?”
Campbell: “There’s a respectable butter-ball over in the corner by the window there. You’d better go and speak to her. She’s got a gingham bundle, like a cook’s, in her lap, and she keeps looking about in a fidgety way, as if she expected somebody. I guess that’s your woman, Roberts. Better not let her give you the slip. You’ll never hear the last of it from Agnes if you do. And who’ll get our dinner to-night?”
Roberts, looking over at the woman in the corner, with growing conviction; “She does answer to the description.”
Campbell: “Yes, and she looks tired of waiting. If I know anything of that woman’s character, Roberts, she thinks she’s been trifled with, and she’s not going to stay to be made a fool of any longer.”
Roberts, getting to his feet: “Do you think so? What makes you think so? Would you go and speak to her?”
Campbell: “I don’t know. She seems to be looking this way. Perhaps she thinks she recognizes you, as she never saw you before.”
Roberts: “There can’t be any harm in asking her? She does seem to be looking this way.”
Campbell: “Pretty blackly, too. I guess she’s lost faith in you. It wouldn’t be any use to speak to her now, Roberts.”