Page:A Little Country Girl - Coolidge (1887).djvu/233

 people of the old sort. If that's all the business you have with me, madam, I think we have got through with it."

"Really, there's no occasion for being so very rude," said Mrs. Joy.

"Rude!" Miss Colishaw gave an acrid laugh. "Mine ain't fashionable manners, I know; but I guess they're about as good." She opened the front door, and held it suggestively wide. Mrs. Joy swept through.

"Come, Miss Arden," she called back over her shoulder.

Candace could do nothing but look as apologetic as she felt. "I'm so sorry," she murmured, as she passed Miss Colishaw.

"You haven't done anything. It's she who ought to be sorry," returned Miss Colishaw, and banged the door behind her as she passed through.

"What a horrid old person!" said Mrs. Joy, who looked heated and vexed. "I never met any one so impertinent. And such a fool, too! Why, she takes in sewing, I am told, or makes cake,—some of those things. She's as poor