Page:Wiggin--Ladies-in-waiting.djvu/170

  “Why do you care so dreadfully whether Pitt comes or not?” asked Mrs. Rumford, now that quiet was restored, “If he don’t come to-day, then he’ll come a Sunday; and if he don’t come this Sunday, then he’ll come the next one, so what’s the odds? You and him did n’t have a fallin’ out last time he was home, did you?”

“Yes, if you must know it, we did.”

“Have n’t you got any common sense, Huldy? Sakes alive! I thought when I married Daniel Rumford, if I could stand his temper it was nobody’s business but my own. I did n’t foresee that he had so much he could keep plenty for his own use, and then have a lot left to hand down to his children, so ’t I should have to live in the house with it to the day of my death! Seems to me if I was a girl and lived in a village where men-folks is as scarce as they be here, I’d be turrible careful to keep holt of a beau after I’d got him. What in the name o’ goodness did you quarrel about?”

Huldah got up from the table and car-