“If you haven’t got anything better to do than come in here and stare at me, I wish you would go somewhere else and stare. I can tell you it isn’t any joke.”
“I didn’t know I was staring at you,” said Ellen, humbly.
“It would be enough to have you rising and sinking there, without your staring at all: If you’re going to stay, I wish you’d lie down. I don’t see why you’re so well, anyway, after getting us all to come on this wild-goose chase.”
“I know, I know,” Ellen strickenly deprecated. “But I’m not going to stay. I jest came for my things.”
“Is that giggling simpleton sick? I hope he is!”
“Mr. Breckon?” Ellen asked, though she knew whom Lottie meant. “No, he isn’t sick. He was at lunch.”
“Was poppa?”
“He was at breakfast.”
“And momma?”
“She and Boyne are both in bed. I don’t know whether they’re very sick.”