Page:Mehalah 1920.djvu/254

244 "You think so?"

"I am sure of it. Have I not been a bride myself? I know about those sort of things by actual experience. I've gone through the operation myself. It is wery like being had up before the magistrate and convicted for life." Elijah was partly satisfied, and he began to eat; but his eyes turned restlessly at intervals to the door.

"Don't you put yourself out," murmured Mrs. De Witt as she leaned over his shoulder and emptied his glass of spirits. "Girls are much like scallops. If you want to have them tender and melting in your mouth, you must treat them with caution and patience. You take the scallops and put them first in lukewarm water, working up into a gentle simmer, and at last, but not under two hours, you toast them, and pepper and butter them, and then they are scalding and delicious. But if you go too fast to work with them, they turn to leather, and will draw the teeth out of your gums if you bite into them. Girls must be treated just similarly, or you spoil them. You wouldn't think it, looking at me, but my Moses, with all his faults, knew how to deal with me, and he got me that soft and yielding that he could squeeze me through his fingers like Mersea mud. True as gospel. Fill your glass, Elijah; it don't look hospitable to allow it to stand empty."

When the lady in her red coat entered, holding triumphantly above her head a leg of boiled mutton, there was a general burst of delight. "A hunter's dinner!" said Goppin. "But where is the bride?" asked Grout. "I want to drink health and a long family to her." "Glory ought to be here. Go up. Mistress Sharland, and bring her down. She has returned by this time," said Rebow.

"I don't think she has," said the old woman. "I am sure of it; go and look." The widow revisited the bedroom. When she returned she said, "No, Elijah; Mehalah has not come back. She has taken off her bridal dress and laid it on the bed, and has put on her blue jersey, and I see she has taken with her a red cap."