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 house, all Josiah would have to do would be to make a cup of tea."

And sez Miss Gowdey, "I have got everything all ready for supper, and Mr. Gowdey can make a better cup of tea any day than I can, he puts it in by the handful, he never uses a teaspoon."

"Then do stay!" sez Susan.

And sez old Miss Patten, comin' in from the kitchen (Nabby wuz sick in the settin' room bedroom), "you needn't say another word, the table is all sot for you. We have got stewed oysters and warm biscuits and honey, and you have got to stay."

And she took our bunnets right off and galanted us into the dinin' room, and we did have a splendid supper. And there it wuz—we two wimmen, both on us weighin' most two hundred, and with half a century's experience—there we wuz doin' jest what Miss Gowdey had whipped little Kate for. That delicate creeter with her little mite of judgment and her easiness to be led astray, and not weighin' over forty pounds. Well, the supper sort o' took up our minds, and we set at the table a good long while. And we didn't want to start off the minute we got through eatin'. But I did feel strange in my mind thinkin' it over, and, though they wuz dretful agreeable, I sot round in my chair and looked at the clock, and Miss Gowdey turned round and looked, and sez she:

"Good land! if it hain't eight o'clock. What will our folks say?"

And sez I, "What will Josiah say?" And we started home a pretty good jog. And Miss Gowdey sez, when we had got most to her house:

"For the land's sake! if we hain't stayed away three hours."