"An' then she looked at him like he was lookin' at her. An' it come to me how it'd been with them two since the night they'd locked up my house together. An' I felt all hushed up, like the weddin' was beginnin'.
"But Timothy an' Silas, they wa'n't feelin' so hushed.
'Look a-here!' says Timothy Toplady, all pent up. 'She ain't discharged from the county house yet.'
"'I don't care a dum,' says Eb, an' I must say I respected him for the 'dum'—that once.
"'Look a-here,' says Silas, without a bit o' delicacy. 'She ain't responsible. She ain't—'
"'She is too,' Eb cut him short. 'She's just as responsible as anybody can be when they're lonesome enough to die. I ought 'a' know that. Shut up, Silas Sykes,' says Eb, all het up. 'You've just et a hot breakfast your wife hed ready for you. You don't know what you're talkin' about.'
"An' then Eb sort o' swep' us all up in the dust-pan.
"'No more words about it,' s'he, 'an' I don't care what any one o' you says—Mis' Cally nor none o' you. So you might just as well say less. Tell 'em, Elspie!'
"She looked up at him, smilin' a little, an' he turned toward her, like we wasn't there. An' I nudged Mis' Merriman an' made a move, an' she turns right away, like she'd fair forgot the funeral flowers. An' Timothy an' Silas actually followed us, but talkin' away a good deal—like men will.
"None of us looked back from the top o' the hill, though I will own I would 'a' loved to. An' about up there I heard Silas say:—