Monona entered this request with precision on Ina's nastiest moments, but she always rose, unabashed, and went, motherly and dutiful, to hear devotions, as if that function and the process of living ran their two divided channels.
She had dispatched this errand and was returning when Mrs. Bett crossed the lawn from Grandma Gates's, where the old lady had taken comfort in Mrs. Bett's ministrations for an hour.
"Don't you help me," Mrs. Bett warned them away sharply. "I guess I can help myself yet awhile."
She gained her chair. And still in her momentary rule of attention, she said clearly:
"I got a joke. Grandma Gates says it's all over town Di and Bobby Larkin eloped off together to-day. He!" The last was a single note of laughter, high and brief.
The silence fell.
"What nonsense!" Dwight Herbert said angrily.
But Ina said tensely: "Is it nonsense? Haven't I been trying and trying to find out where the black satchel went? Di!"
Di's laughter rose, but it sounded thin and false.
"Listen to that, Bobby," she said. "Listen!"