"What's the matter?" queried a sleepy voice from the doorway giving into an inner room, as Racey's spurred heels jingled past the washbench. "What's goin' on? Who was here? What you yelling about, anyway?"
"Racey was here, Ma," said Molly.
"Seems to me you made an uncommon racket about it," grumbled her mother, plodding into the kitchen in her slippers.
Her gray hair was all in strings about her face. Her eyes and cheeks were puffed with sleep. She had pulled a quilt round her shoulders over her nightdress. Now she gave the quilt a hitch up and sat down in a chair.
"Make me a cup o' coffee, will you, Molly?" said Mrs. Dale. "My head aches sort of. I hope you didn't have a fight with Racey Dawson."
"Well, we didn't quite agree," admitted Molly, snapping shut the cover of the coffee-mill and clamping the mill between her knees. "I don't like him any more, Ma."
"And after he's helped us so! I was counting on him to fix up this mortgage business! Whatever's got into you, Molly?"
"He's been running round with that awful lookout girl at the Happy
Heart."
"Is that all?" yawned Mrs. Dale, greatly relieved. "I thought it might have been something serious."
"It is serious! What right has he to—"