"No," I says. "You can't fool me, either."
"Well now," says Mis' Sykes, "there's nothing to hinder our banging right ahead with our plan for to-morrow night, is there?"
"Nothing whatever," I says, "to hinder me."
Mis' Sykes jerked herself around and looked at me irritable.
"Why don't you volunteer?" says she. "I hate to dig the news out of anybody with the can-opener."
I'd have given a good deal to feel that I didn't have to tell her, but just let her go ahead with the reception surprise. I knew, though, that I ought to tell her, not only because I knew her through and through, but because I couldn't count on the village. We're real democratic in the things we know about, but let a new situation stick up its head and we bound to the other side, automatic.
"Mis' Sykes," I says, "everything that we'd thought of our new neighbor is true. Also, she's going to be a new experience for us in a way we hadn't thought of. She's dark-skinned."
"A brunette," says Mis' Sykes. "I see that through her veil—what of it?"
"Nothing—nothing at all," says I. "You noticed then, that she's colored?"