"
"Well, brother, you shall tell her then, for I am sure I daren't.
I don't mind doing the thing, since you talked to me that day,
and since I have got to know Ruth; but I do mind all the clatter
people will make about it."
"But Sally is not 'people.'"
"Oh, I see it must be done; she'll talk as much as all the other
persons put together, so that's the reason I call her 'people.'
Shall I call her?" (For the house was too homely and primitive to
have bells.)
Sally came, fully aware of what was now going to be told her, and
determined not to help them out in telling their awkward secret,
by understanding the nature of it before it was put into the
plainest language. In every pause, when they hoped she had caught
the meaning they were hinting at, she persisted in looking stupid
and perplexed, and in saying, "Well," as if quite unenlightened
as to the end of the story. When it was all complete and before
her, she said, honestly enough--
"It's just as I thought it was; and I think you may thank me for
having had the sense to put her into widow's caps, and clip off
that bonny brown hair that was fitter for a bride in lawful
matrimony than for such as her. She took it very well, though.
She was as quiet as a lamb, and I clipped her pretty roughly at
first. I must say, though, if I'd ha' known who your visitor was,
I'd ha' packed up my things and cleared myself out of the house
before such as her came into it.
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