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Her reflections were swift and angry, and while all still stood in the dark, as yet too surprised to move, she demanded, crisply: "I want Katharine." "Come this way, Mrs. Sprigg. Let me take your hand and lead you. I'll soon get a light, and please excuse Alfaretta. I don't understand what has happened to her. Don't cling to me like that, child. You hinder me."
Of course, Eunice being unused to the management of large affairs and only a woman a woman she would appreciate the help of an experienced man. I trust my advice may prove of benefit to her." The Widow Sprigg listened with an attention that would have been flattering had not her face evinced her incredulity.
She might have put a peculiar emphasis upon the "Mrs.," but then, everybody has his or her tricks of speech which mean nothing. There was no door-bell at The Maples, but a polished brass knocker announced the arrival of any visitor; and it seemed to the worried Widow Sprigg as if that "plaguey knocker had done nothin' but whack the hull endurin' time sence Moses got hurt.
Also, that to Miss Maitland the whole affair was known "root and branch," and that she had been true to her character and refused to share her affairs with even the friendliest of neighbors. "And now, Susanna Sprigg, what do you say to that?" demanded the deacon, exultantly, when he had finished his garbled narrative. "I say bosh! And you've burned the toast. But I've got enough done, anyway.
At about three there was a great shouting and heaving of the crowd, and the High Commissioner came on the scene, and walked down the quay through a guard of honour which we and the Infantry had contributed to form, industriously kinematographed on his progress by a fat Jew. Several staff-officers were with Milner, and a grey-bearded gentleman, whom we guessed to be Sir Gordon Sprigg.
"It is a matter of thankfulness," retorted the girl, pertly, and surveying the other with amused and critical eyes, which made Susanna Sprigg "squirm in her shoes."
At that time Sir Gordon Sprigg, of the Progressive Party, was in power and Prime Minister; but he was only kept in office by the Bond, who made the Ministers more or less ridiculous in the eyes of the country by causing them to dance like puppets at their bidding.
"That's just why, I suppose. Because he 'belongs. And because he isn't old. Not so very. He isn't gray, anyway." The Widow Sprigg looked over her spectacles and saw such a dejected face that she immediately suggested caraway cookies.
At noon of this Saturday she was perched upon the edge of his cot, daintily feeding him with bits of food she had cut up, when there was a clatter of feet upon the stairs, and, breathless as usual, Montgomery rushed in, announcing, without even a nod to Moses: "I-it-it's true! Mis' Turner's seen it in her w-w-wood-shed! Widow Sprigg wasn't m-m-mis-took!"
You must not touch those things, they aren't mine!" he did not notice her. Already one pumpkin pie was half-devoured. Uncooked food from the fields may, indeed, prevent starvation, but here was luxury. If "the proof of the pudding is in the eating," Susanna Sprigg should have been highly flattered. Katharine had never seen anybody eat as this man did.
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