"Well," said the doctor, taking his spectacles from his nose, and
folding them up carefully in their leathern case; "I hope you'll be
easy, Mis. Hall, now that we've toted out here, bag and baggage, to
please you, when I supposed I was settled for the rest of my life."
"_Fathers_ can't be expected to have as much natural affection, or to be
as self-sacrificing as _mothers_," said the old lady. "Of course, it was
some trouble to move out here; but, for Harry's sake, I was willing to
do it. What does Ruth know about house-keeping, I'd like to know? A
pretty muss she'll make of it, if _I'm_ not around to oversee things."
"It strikes me," retorted the doctor, "that you won't get any thanks for
it--from _one_ side of the house, at least. Ruth never _says_ anything
when you vex her, but there's a look in her eye which--well, Mis. Hall,
it tells the whole story."
"I've seen it," said the old lady, while her very cap-strings fluttered
with indignation, "and it has provoked me a thousand times more than if
she had thrown a brick-bat at my head. That girl is no fool, doctor. She
knows very well what she is about: but diamond cut diamond, _I_ say.
Doctor, doctor, there are the hens in the garden. I want that garden
kept nice. I suppose Ruth thinks that nobody can have flowers but
herself. Wait till my china-asters and sweet peas come up. I'm going
over to-day to take a peep round her house; I wonder what it looks like?
Stuck full of gimcracks, of all sorts, I'll warrant. Well, I shan't
furnish my best parlor till I see what she has got. I've laid by a
little money, and--"
"Better give it to the missionaries, Mis. Hall," growled the doctor; "I
tell you Ruth don't care a pin what you have in your parlor."
"Don't you believe it," said the old lady.
"Well, anyhow," muttered the doctor, "you can't get the upper hand of
_her_ in that line; i. e., if she has a mind that you shall not. Harry
is doing a very good business; and you know very well, it is no use
to try to blind your eyes to it, that if she wanted Queen Victoria's
sceptre, he'd manage to get it for her."
"That's more than I can say of _you_," exclaimed the old lady, fanning
herself violently; "for all that I used to mend your old saddle-bags,
and once made, with my own hands, a pair of leather small-clothes to
ride horseback in. Forty years, doctor, I've spent in your service. I
don't look much as I did when you married me. I was said then to have
'woman's seven beauties,' including the 'dimple in the chin,' which I
see still remains;" and the old lady pointed to a slight indentation in
her wrinkled face. "I might have had him that was Squire Smith, or Pete
Packer, or Jim Jessup. There wasn't one of 'em who had not rather do the
chores on _our_ farm, than on any other in the village."
"Pooh, pooh," said the doctor, "don't be an old fool; that was because
your father kept good cider."
Mrs. Hall's cap-strings were seen flying the next minute through the
sitting-room door; and the doctor was heard to mutter, as she banged the
door behind her, "_that_ tells the whole story!"